Fans of space, data and pretty pictures, rejoice: Euclid, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) newest space telescope, has released its first major batch of observations, replete with cosmic mysteries and breathtaking views.
“These are far more than beautiful pictures; today marks a scientific milestone in our study of the cosmos,” said Carole Mundell, the agency’s director of science, in a statement. “This major Euclid data release represents the largest space-based survey of its kind, laying the foundation of future discovery in a new regime for astronomy and demonstrating the excellence of European technology, science and international collaboration.”
Euclid launched in 2023 with the aim of capturing wide panoramic views of space with high resolution—in its operational lifetime, it aims to image one third of the entire sky. In this release, the telescope recorded more than a billion objects over 13 months of observation.
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Here are just some of our favorite new images from Euclid:
ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA; J.-C. Cuillandre and E. Bertin (image processing) (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)
This mosaic forms the basis of what could one day be a full cosmic map. It spans nearly 500 gigapixels in size—equivalent to at least 10,000 high-quality smartphone images. It’s made up of 740 observations and includes more than 900 million galaxies.
The Abell 3128 galaxy cluster lies 800 million light-years away.
ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA; J.-C. Cuillandre and E. Bertin (image processing) (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)
This image shows Abell 3128, a cluster that includes hundreds of galaxies of various shapes and forms. Around 800 million light-years away from Earth, it is a part of the Horologium Supercluster.
ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA; J.-C. Cuillandre and E. Bertin (image processing) (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)
The full Horologium Supercluster, which includes more than 30 smaller galaxy clusters, is shown here. This image, taken by Euclid over 18 days, stretches across time and space: its distant objects are from the early universe, as far as 10 billion light-years away.
ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA; J.-C. Cuillandre and E. Bertin (image processing) (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)
Messier 81, seen on the right side of the image, is a “grand-design” spiral galaxy and lies around 12 million light-years away from us. Other galaxies, including NGC 3077, are also in this image, which Euclid only needed around an hour to take.
ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA; J.-C. Cuillandre and E. Bertin (image processing) (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)
This image offers a closer view of Messier 81, alongside a slew of individual stars captured in stunning detail.
ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA; N. Lines and T. Li (image processing) (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)
This image shows a collection of gravitational lenses—which are created when light from far-out galaxies is distorted by nearer galaxies. Euclid has assembled the largest catalog to date of these lenses, which are primarily used to measure the masses of different galaxy components.
ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA; J.-C. Cuillandre and E. Bertin (image processing) (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)
This close-up view of NGC 1291, a ring galaxy, shows off Euclid’s eye for detail. Also known as the Golden Eye galaxy, it lies around 33 million light-years away.
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