ESA’s Euclid Reveals First Stunning Map of the Universe – See The Mind-Blowing First Look!

16th Oct 2024
ESA’s Euclid Reveals First Stunning Map of the Universe – See The Mind-Blowing First Look!

ESA’s Euclid mission has recently unveiled the first piece of its great map of the Universe. This first page is a massive 208-gigapixel mosaic capturing millions of stars and galaxies.

The mosaic consists of 260 observations taken between 25 March and 8 April 2024. In just two weeks, Euclid mapped 132 square degrees of the Southern Sky with remarkable precision. For comparison, this is an area more than 500 times larger than the full Moon.

ESA’s Director General Josef Aschbacher and Director of Science Carole Mundell presented the map on 15 October at the International Astronautical Congress in Milan, Italy.

The Largest Cosmic 3D Map Ever Created

Mosaic of Euclid observations.jpg
Mosaic of Euclid observations. Credit: ESA

The first section of the map presented in Italy already includes around 100 million objects, such as stars in our Milky Way and distant galaxies. According to Valeria Pettorino, Euclid Project Scientist at ESA, this mosaic represents just 1% of the full survey Euclid will complete over six years. During this time, the telescope will study billions of galaxies’ shapes, distances, and movements up to 10 billion light-years away. This will result in the biggest 3D map of the universe ever created!

“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,” says Valeria.

What’s On the Great Map Of The Universe?

The Euclid spacecraft’s highly sensitive cameras captured an impressive number of objects in incredible detail. When zooming deep into the mosaic (enlarged 600 times from the original view), the intricate structure of a spiral galaxy remains clearly visible.

A striking feature in the mosaic is the faint clouds between the stars in our galaxy, appearing as light blue against the blackness of space. We know these clouds, a mix of gas and dust, as “galactic cirrus” because they resemble cirrus clouds. Euclid’s ultra-sensitive visible light camera can detect these clouds as they reflect optical light from the Milky Way. They also glow in far-infrared light, as seen in data from ESA’s Planck mission.

What’s Next For The Euclid Mission?

Euclid’s mosaic on Gaia and Planck sky map
Euclid’s mosaic on Gaia and Planck sky map. Credit: ESA

According to scientists, the mosaic previews the thrilling discoveries still to come from the Euclid mission. The survey’s release of 53 square degrees, which includes a sneak peek at the Euclid Deep Field areas, is set for March 2025. Additionally, the first set of cosmology data from the mission’s first year will be shared with the scientific community in 2026.

Euclid Mission

Euclid is a European space mission operated by ESA with contributions from NASA. It involves over 2,000 scientists from 300 institutes across 15 European countries, the USA, Canada, and Japan. The Euclid mission launched in July 2023 and began its science observations on 14 February 2024. The first images of Euclid were shown to the world in November 2023 and May 2024.

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