A mind-boggling number of shining galaxies, a purple and orange star nursery and a spiral galaxy similar to our Milky Way: new images were revealed from Europe’s Euclid space telescope on Thursday

It is the second set of images released by the European Space Agency since Euclid launched last year on the first-ever mission to investigate the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy.

It’s absolutely amazing. It’s just so much more than I ever expected. Euclid will be game-changing for astronomy

Euclid has been dubbed a “dark universe” detective because its primary mission is to investigate the universe’s two most mysterious elements: dark energy and dark matter, often collectively described as the “dark universe.” 

Dark energy is the placeholder name given to whatever force is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate, while dark matter is a form of matter that is effectively invisible because it doesn’t interact with light. This means scientists know it can’t be “ordinary” matter made of electrons, protons and neutrons that comprise stars, planets, moons, our bodies, and pretty much everything else tangible we can indeed see and interact with.

The Euclid space telescope has released five mesmerizing new photos of our universe, kicking off a six-year campaign to unveil the secrets of dark matter, dark energy and other cosmological mysteries

Launched into orbit on July 1, 2023, Euclid was designed to compile wide-lens images to help scientists hunt for two of the universe’s most mysterious components: dark matter and dark energy

Researchers think dark matter and dark energy together make up about 95% of the universe, but they do not interact with light so can’t be detected directly. Instead, scientists study these mysterious components by observing the way they interact with the visible universe around them: Dark matter can be seen by observing its gravitational warping effects on galaxies; and dark energy in the force propelling the universe’s runaway expansion

Can dark matter be detected by telescopes?

Although astronomers cannot see dark matter, they can detect its influence by observing how its gravity bends and distorts light from more-distant objects, a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. Large galaxy clusters contain both dark matter and normal matter

Are JWST images true color?

The colors in JWST’s images may not be “real,” but don’t get the wrong idea — the colors aren’t meant to trick you, and they aren’t chosen only to look good. The images are intended to communicate as clearly as possible what JWST can see — and what our eyes can’t

Does Hubble telescope take color pictures?

Did you know that the Hubble Space Telescope doesn’t have any color cameras on it? Its sensitive electronic detectors count each bit of light that hits the camera, but don’t directly record the color of the light. Hubble uses special filters that allow only a certain range of colors through

Are galaxies really colorful?

The bluer a galaxy, the more young stars the galaxy contains, and the younger the galaxy is. On the contrary, redder galaxies are dominated by older stars, and are thought to be older galaxies. There is another factor that makes galaxies appear reddish: a phenomenon known as “reddening” caused by intervening dust

Are nebula pictures real?

As it turns out, space telescope imagery exaggerates the appearance of nebulae significantly, but not necessarily for the purpose of being misleading. Instead, scientists utilize the extra visibility of the infrared and ultraviolet light spectrums to discern matter that would otherwise be invisible

What is Euclid telescope

Euclid is a wide-angle space telescope with a 600-megapixel camera to record visible light, a near-infrared spectrometer, and photometer, to determine the redshift of detected galaxies. It was developed by the European Space Agency and the Euclid Consortium and was launched on 1 July 2023

After approximately one month, it reached its destination, a halo orbit around the Sun-Earth second Lagrange point L2, at an average distance of 1.5 million kilometres beyond Earth’s orbit (or about four times the distance from the Earth to the Moon). There the telescope is expected to remain operational for at least six years. It joins the Gaia and James Webb Space Telescopemissions at L2.

The objective of the Euclid mission is to better understand dark energy and dark matter by accurately measuring the accelerating expansion of the universe. To achieve this, the Korsch-type telescope will measure the shapes of galaxies at varying distances from Earth and investigate the relationship between distance and redshift. Dark energy is generally accepted as contributing to the increased acceleration of the expanding universe, so understanding this relationship will help to refine how physicists and astrophysicists understand it. Euclid’s mission advances and complements ESA’s Planck telescope (2009 to 2013). The mission is named after the ancient Greekmathematician Euclid.

Scientific objectives and methods

Euclid will probe the history of the expansion of the universe and the formation of cosmic structures by measuring the redshift of galaxies out to a value of 2, which is equivalent to seeing back 10 billion years into the past. The link between galactic shapes and their corresponding redshift will help to show how dark energy contributes to the increased acceleration of the universe. The methods employed exploit the phenomenon of gravitational lensing, measurement of baryon acoustic oscillations, and measurement of galactic distances by spectroscopy.

Euclid emerged from two mission concepts that were proposed in response to the ESA Cosmic Vision 2015–2025 Call for Proposals, issued in March 2007: DUNE, the Dark Universe Explorer, and SPACE, the Spectroscopic All-Sky Cosmic Explorer. Both missions proposed complementary techniques to measure the geometry of the universe, and after an assessment study phase, a combined mission resulted. The new mission concept was called Euclid, honouring the Greek mathematician Euclid of Alexandria (~300 BC), who is considered the father of geometry. In October 2011, Euclidwas selected by ESA’s Science Programme Committee for implementation, and on 25 June 2012 it was formally adopted

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