MADRID, 7 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
ESA has published the first full-color images of the cosmos taken with the famous Euclid space telescope, unprecedented in their sharpness in such a large and distant area of ??the Universe.
Euclid, launched last July 1, aims to investigate how dark matter and energy have made our Universe look like it does today. 95% of our cosmos appears to be made up of these mysterious “dark” entities. But we don’t understand what they are because their presence only causes very subtle changes in the appearance and movements of the things we can see.
To reveal the “dark” influence on the visible Universe, over the next six years Euclid will observe the shapes, distances and movements of billions of galaxies within a radius of 10 billion light years. By doing this, he will create the largest 3D cosmic map ever created.
What makes Euclid’s view of the cosmos special is its ability to create a remarkably sharp visible and infrared image over a large part of the sky in a single session, ESA reports.
The images published this November 7 show this special ability: from bright stars to faint galaxies, the observations show the entirety of these celestial objects, while remaining extremely sharp, even when zooming in on distant galaxies.
“Dark matter attracts galaxies and makes them spin faster than visible matter alone can explain; Dark energy is driving the accelerated expansion of the Universe. Euclid will for the first time allow cosmologists to study these dark mysteries together in competition,” explains ESA’s scientific director, Professor Carole Mundell.
“Euclid will provide a leap forward in our understanding of the cosmos as a whole, and these exquisite images of Euclid show that the mission is ready to help answer one of the greatest mysteries of modern physics,” he adds.
