The first part of what will be the largest 3D map of the universe ever made has been revealed, showing 14 million galaxies – not to mention tens of millions of stars in our own Milky Way – in incredible detail.
The Euclid mission, launched in 2023 and managed by the European Space Agency (ESA) with contributions from NASA, sent his first photos in November of that year and in May 2024.
The purpose of Euclid is to enable the creation of a 3D map in time and space of the universe, in an attempt to elucidate its evolution and consequently shed light on the mysterious phenomena of dark energy and dark matter that make up together. 95% of the universe.
The newly released data is a 208 gigapixel mosaic and covers 1% of what will be the final map.
The finished map is expected to involve six years of observations and will take up a third of the sky, with observations expected to capture billions of galaxies up to 10 billion light-years across.
Prof Mat Page, of the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College London (UCL), who is the lead for Euclid’s visual imaging system camera, said that no one before Euclid had ever imaged such a large area of the sky at such a ‘ did not make a height. resolution.
“Even the zoomed-in images do not show the full resolution of Euclid’s spectacular VIS camera,” he said.
“Before Euclid, we would never have been able to see the faint cirrus clouds in the Milky Way and pick out every star that illuminates them in super high resolution.
“And this is only a small fraction of the full area that Euclid is going to explore, so by the end we will have a truly astronomical harvest of discoveries.”
Images released by Esa highlight the area of the sky covered by the new mosaic, along with the mosaic itself and zoomed-in views.
Esa said regions of light blue seen in the mosaic are galactic cirrus clouds sitting between stars in the Milky Way.
These fickle clouds, made up of gas and dust, reflect optical light, allowing them to be captured by the mission’s super-sensitive visible light camera.
Zoom in further on the mosaic and other features can be seen, including the spiral galaxy NGC 2188 and the galaxy cluster Abell 3381.
In a view zoomed in 600 times relative to the original mosaic, a distant swirling galaxy is visible in incredible detail.
