Stunning new photos from the European Space Agency’s Euclid probe show the cosmos in ‘mesmerizing’ detail.
The British-backed spacecraft, which launched from Florida in July, has returned its first five images from its vantage point about 1 million miles from Earth.
This includes an image of 1,000 galaxies belonging to the Perseus Cluster 250 million light-years away and a view of the Horsehead Nebula in the constellation Orion.
There’s also a beautiful spiral galaxy, an ‘irregular dwarf galaxy’ and a globular star cluster – a dense ball of about 400,000 old stars.
The first image shows 1,000 galaxies belonging to the Perseus Cluster, and more than 100,000 additional galaxies further away in the background, each containing hundreds of billions of stars.
Euclid shows us a spectacularly detailed image of the Horsehead Nebula, found in the constellation Orion
A spiral galaxy called “Hidden Galaxy”, also known as IC 342 or Cadwell 5, captured by the Euclid telescope
An irregularly shaped dwarf galaxy called NGC 6822, located 1.6 million light-years from Earth
A globular cluster called NGC 6397, the second closest globular cluster to Earth, located about 7,800 light-years away
The first five images released today are the first step in Euclid’s six-year mission to create the most comprehensive 3D map of the universe to date.
ESA said: ‘Never before has a telescope been able to capture such razor-sharp astronomical images of such a large part of the sky.’
Euclid is stationed at L2, the ‘second Lagrange point’ of space – a position in space between Earth and the Sun where objects sent there tend to stay in place.
L2 is 1.5 million kilometers directly ‘behind’ Earth as seen from the Sun – almost four times further away from Earth than the Moon can ever reach.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket prepares to launch the Euclid satellite for the European Space Agency at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, July 1, 2023
The probe’s purpose is to better understand two mysterious components that make up 95 percent of the universe: dark matter and dark energy.
Dark matter, which unlike normal matter does not reflect or emit light, connects galaxies, creating the environment for stars, planets and life.
Meanwhile, dark energy is the mysterious phenomenon that is pushing galaxies away from each other and causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate.
Experts hope to answer two key questions: what the fundamental laws of nature of the universe are, and how the universe came into being and what it is made of.
Britain has contributed £37 million to the £850 million mission, with scientists playing a key role in designing and building the probe and leading one of the two scientific instruments on board.