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The Euclid telescope has snapped a breathtaking photo of the universe, dotted with millions of stars and galaxies. The mission is an initiative by the European Space Agency and was launched in July 2023. It aims to explore the dark side of the universe and create the most accurate 3D map of the universe.

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Astronomers have now shared the first images taken by Euclid which is only a tiny piece of the huge map assembled by the astronomers that spans 208 gigapixels, from 260 observations made between March 25 and April 8. 

According to the ESA, just the one per cent mosaic of the entire map shows a patch of region filled with "100 million sources" comprising stars from the Milky Way and far-off galaxies. 

“This stunning image is the first piece of a map that in six years will reveal more than one-third of the sky. This is just 1% of the map, and yet it is full of a variety of sources that will help scientists discover new ways to describe the Universe,” Valeria Pettorino, Euclid project scientist at the ESA, said in a statement.

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Notably, Euclid will make several more observations in the coming years, going in-depth to measure the shape, distance and motion of billions of galaxies.

Map of universe

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The image shows galactic cirrus clouds sitting between the stars in the Milky Way in regions of light blue, as per the ESA. 

Euclid will learn about dark matter and dark energy

This is the first time that an image has been created of such a large area of sky at such high resolution, Professor Mat Page, of the Mullard space science laboratory at University College London (UCL), who leads Euclid’s VIS (visible instrument) camera at University College London, said.

“Before Euclid, we would never be able to see the faint cirrus clouds in the Milky Way, and pick out every star that’s illuminating them in super-high resolution," she added.

Another objective Euclid has been entrusted with is to observe dark matter and dark energy. The former is still only a theoretical phenomenon in space and has never been detected. It is believed to make up 85 per cent of the total matter in the universe. 

Dark energy is also a mystery and is thought to be a force that works to accelerate the expansion of the universe.