Euclid Space Telescope Releases First Data, Maps Millions of Galaxies

The European Space Agency's Euclid space telescope has released its first data, covering 0.5% of its mission goal. The data includes observations of three sky patches, encompassing 26 million galaxies up to 10.5 billion light-years away. This initial release features a detailed catalog of over 380,000 galaxies classified by shape and characteristics, including spiral arms and galactic mergers, created with the help of AI and citizen scientists. Euclid is designed to map the universe's large-scale structure, explore dark matter and dark energy, and identify gravitational lenses. The next data release, planned for October 2026, will cover an area 30 times larger.