On October 15, 2024, the European Space Agency unveiled a stunning mosaic comprising around 100 million stars and galaxies at the International Astronautical Congress in Milan, Italy.
This initial image represents just 1% of a comprehensive map that, over six years, will cover more than one-third of the sky. Valeria Petorino, a scientist involved in the Euclid project, emphasized that this diverse array of sources will aid scientists in developing new methods to describe the universe.
One of Euclid's primary objectives is to investigate dark matter and dark energy. Dark matter, which has never been directly observed, is believed to account for 85% of the universe's total matter. Meanwhile, dark energy is a mysterious force thought to contribute to the accelerated expansion of the universe.
Astronomers anticipate that observations of millions of galaxies will reveal hidden forces that shape the universe's structure and drive its mysterious acceleration.
The wide field of view of Euclid can capture data from an area of the sky 100 times larger than that accessible to NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. However, its sensitive cameras can also capture intricate details of numerous celestial objects simultaneously.
Notable features in the mosaic include the delicate structure of a spiral galaxy in the Abell 3381 cluster, located 470 million light-years away, and the light blue clouds between stars in the Milky Way galaxy. These 'galactic cirrus' clouds, named for their resemblance to Earth’s cirrus clouds, consist of gas and dust, which Euclid can detect with its visible light camera.
Euclid's first images were released in November 2023, with regular sky observations commencing in February 2024. To date, the observatory has completed 12% of its survey.
Jason Rhodes, a cosmologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, noted, 'We have already seen beautiful high-resolution images of individual objects and groups from Euclid. This new image finally gives us an insight into the vast area of the sky that Euclid will cover, allowing us to make detailed measurements of billions of galaxies.'