Astronomy ESA publishes cosmic atlas of the "Euclid" mission
The European Space Agency (ESA) has published the first part of its cosmic atlas. The excerpt contains the combination of hundreds of observations taken by the space telescope of the "Euclid" mission over two weeks in March and April 2024.
15.10.2024, 18:15
SDA
This mosaic represents around one percent of the section of the sky that the telescope will record within six years. The project aims to create the largest three-dimensional map of the universe to date, with billions of galaxies within a radius of ten billion light years. The section of the southern sky that has now been presented covers an area of the firmament equivalent to 500 times the area of the full moon, the ESA announced. It therefore contains around 14 million galaxies as well as tens of millions of stars in the Earth's home galaxy, the Milky Way.
A look into the past of the universe
The space telescope was launched into space in July last year. It is equipped with two cameras - one for the visible wavelength range and one for the near-infrared range. They are intended to image the movements and shapes of galaxies and also help to deduce the distance of galaxies.
The observations should provide information on how matter in space is distributed over vast distances and how the expansion of the universe has developed. In this way, ESA wants to take a look into the past of the universe and explore its development over the last ten billion years.
From this, the astronomers hope to be able to deduce the properties of dark energy and dark matter. ESA repeatedly published images of "Euclid" last year.
