The European Space Agency (ESA) will release five new images from the Euclid space telescope on Thursday, May 23. And if the previous batch of photos is anything to go by, space fans should be in for an absolute treat.
“Five new portraits of our universe were captured during Euclid’s first observations, each revealing surprising new science,” ESA officials said in a statement. said. “Euclid’s ability to unlock the secrets of the universe is something you don’t want to miss.”
The new images will be released at 05:00 EDT (12:00 CEST) and will be accompanied by 10 incredible scientific papers. You can watch the data broadcast live on ESA’s YouTube channel.
Relating to: Euclid ‘dark universe’ telescope thaws a million miles away
As an appetizer, perhaps we can remind ourselves of the incredible cosmic views this mission has provided so far.
Euclid’s story so far
Launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on July 1, 2023, Euclid is a wide-angle space telescope carrying a 600-megapixel camera, a near-infrared spectrometer, and a photometer that observes the cosmos in visible light. It is used to determine the redshift of galaxies. Knowing the redshift allows scientists to understand how fast distant galaxies are moving away from our planet.
Euclid’s primary mission is to investigate the two most mysterious elements of the universe: dark energy and dark matter. These phenomena collectively form what is often referred to as the “dark universe”.
Dark energy is the name given to the force that causes the expansion of the universe to accelerate. Dark matter, on the other hand, is a form of matter that is virtually invisible because it does not interact with light. This means that scientists know that what makes up stars, planets, moons, and our bodies is not “ordinary” matter made up of electrons, protons, and neutrons. Dark matter can only make its presence known through its interactions with gravity, which can affect ordinary matter and light. But to be clear, neither dark matter nor dark energy are necessarily composed of one thing. Both may be composed of many things, or perhaps each is actually made of one homogeneous thing.
The thing is, we don’t know.
However, dark energy is thought to constitute approximately 68% of the energy and matter budget of the universe, and dark matter approximately 27%. This means that the dark universe makes up 95% of the things in the universe and only 5% of the things we actually understand.
So it’s clear that Euclid, dubbed the “dark universe detective” for his special suite of tools, has his work cut out for him. However, the first official images of the space telescope, published on November 7, 2023, after its first four months in space, showed that it was ready for this mission.
Just above is one of the first images the public saw from the Euclid telescope. This is a snapshot showing approximately 1000 galaxies, all belonging to the Perseus Cluster. Located approximately 240 million light-years from Earth, this cluster is one of the largest structures in the known universe.
Mapping such large volumes of galaxies is key to understanding how dark matter is distributed and how this distribution affects the evolution of the universe.
The image showcases the wealth of Perseus Cluster galaxies, as well as 100,000 much more distant galaxies, each containing up to hundreds of billions of stars. Observations of large numbers of distant galaxies like these are key to unraveling, Euclid said, how dark energy is pushing these galaxies away faster and faster, accelerating the expansion of space between them.
Just because Euclid had his eyes on vast swathes of galaxies does not mean that he could not be impressed by images of single galaxies.
Another of the first Euclidean images that caught our eye was, ironically, of a device tasked with revealing the dark elements of the universe. This is because it describes the galaxy IC 342, also known as the “Hidden Galaxy”.
This galaxy is located approximately 11 million light-years from Earth and is difficult to view because it lies behind the bright, dusty disk of the Milky Way. But that didn’t stop Euclid from capturing an incredible image of this once-hidden spiral galaxy. To do this, the space telescope used its near-infrared instrument; This is advantageous because the gas and dust in the Milky Way disk are less effective at absorbing infrared light compared to other wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation.
To uncover the mysteries of the dark universe and create a detailed 3D map of the universe, Euclid will need to see galaxies as far away as 10 billion light years, viewing the 13.8 billion year old universe as less than 4 times larger. Billion years after the Big Bang.
These galaxies probably won’t have the neat, spiral-like arrangements of the Milky Way or even the Hidden Galaxy. Most galaxies in the early universe are “bloblet”, poorly shaped irregular galaxies that serve as the building blocks of larger galaxies.
To prepare for observing these distant, early galaxies, Euclid’s first images included an image of the more local irregular galaxy NGC 6822, located just 1.6 million light-years from Earth.
Although they provide us with extraordinarily sparkling images, Euclid will not only focus on galaxies during its mission.
The space telescope will also watch for globular clusters, as the above image of NGC 6397 shows. And thankfully, globular clusters are just as beautiful. These are clusters of hundreds of thousands of stars bound together by gravity and are some of the oldest structures in the known universe.
NGC 6397 is the second closest globular cluster to Earth, approximately 7,800 light-years away. Globular clusters such as NGC 6397 orbit the disk of the Milky Way and may hold clues about the evolution of our galaxy, or at least other galaxies with such structures.
Euclid will be successful in studying globular clusters because, unlike other telescopes, it has a wide field of view to capture entire globular clusters in a single image, just like NGC 6397.
Much of Euclid’s mission will focus on the unknown, but the final image in the first batch of Euclid broadcasts actually showed us a familiar celestial object in a completely new light. The dark universe detective managed to create a surprisingly detailed panoramic image of the Horsehead Nebula, also known as Barnard 33.
Located approximately 1,380 light-years from Earth and east of the Orion Belt, the Horsehead Nebula is one of the closest star-forming clouds of gas and dust to the solar system. It’s also a sight to behold.
Although many telescopes have imaged the Horsehead Nebula in the past, none have captured this region of Orion’s molecular cloud with such a broad and sharp view. What’s even more surprising about this image is that it only took Euclid an hour of observation time to create it. It’s no surprise that professional and amateur astronomers and space enthusiasts are excited about the data to be released on May 23.
RELATED STORIES:
— Whose name is the Euclid ‘dark universe’ space telescope?
— Dark matter particle that could finally shed light on cosmic mystery, ‘best of both worlds,’ scientists say
— We have never seen dark matter and dark energy. Why do we think they exist?
To that end, as breathtaking as the images detailed above are, there’s a good chance the best is yet to come for Euclid as he begins to achieve his mission objectives while shedding intriguing light on the dark universe.
We’ll have to wait until early Thursday to see what the next Euclid images have to offer, and how this dark universe detective begins to live up to big mission expectations after nearly a year in space. But still, if its past is any indication of its future, it’s hard to imagine anything other than information-rich beauty from these images.