Completed the first fragment of the colossal universe map of the Euclid mission

The first finished piece of the colossal map of the universe that is being made from observations by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Euclid astronomical satellite has been publicly presented.

This first fragment of the map, which is a huge 208 gigapixel mosaic, was presented today at the International Astronautics Congress in Milan, Italy, by ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher and Director of Science Carole Mundell.

The mosaic contains 260 observations made between March 25 and April 8, 2024. In just two weeks, Euclid covered 132 square degrees of the southern sky with impressive clarity, more than 500 times the area of ​​the full moon.

This mosaic represents 1% of the extensive study that Euclid will conduct over six years. During this study, the telescope will observe the shapes, distances and movements of billions of galaxies up to 10 billion light-years away. In this way, the largest 3D cosmic map to date will be created.

This first piece of the map already contains about 100 million sources: stars in our Milky Way and galaxies beyond. Some 14 million of these galaxies could be used to study the hidden influence of dark matter and energy in the universe.

The 14 million galaxies are bright enough for Euclid to measure their distorted shapes (as a result of gravitational lensing) and find out more about the distribution of dark matter in our universe. Euclid’s map of the distribution of galaxies over cosmic time may also provide revealing new data on dark energy, which affects how quickly the universe expands.

«This impressive image is the first piece of a map that in six years will show us more than a third of the sky. This is just 1% of the map, yet it is full of sources that will help scientists discover new ways of describing the universe,” says Valeria Pettorino, Euclid project scientist at ESA.

Mosaic of Euclid observations in the southern sky. (Image: ESA / Euclid / Euclid Consortium / NASA / CEA Paris-Saclay. Image processing: J.-C. Cuillandre / E. Bertin / G. Anselmi)

The ship’s sensitive cameras captured an incredible number of objects in great detail.

A special feature visible in the mosaic is the faint clouds between the stars of our own galaxy, which appear in light blue against the black background of space. They are a mixture of gas and dust, also called “galactic cirrus clouds” because they resemble clouds of the type known as cirrus clouds. Euclid is able to see these clouds with its supersensitive visible light camera because they reflect optical light from the Milky Way. Clouds also glow in the far infrared, like those observed by ESA’s Planck mission.

The newly published mosaic is a preview of what the Euclid mission will bring us. Since the mission began routine scientific observations in February, 12% of the study has been completed. Release of 53 Square Degrees, including a preview of Euclid Deep Field areas, is planned for March 2025. The mission’s first year of cosmological data will be made available to the scientific community in 2026.

NASA has also collaborated on the Euclid mission. The Euclid consortium, consisting of more than 2,000 scientists from 300 institutes in 15 European countries, the USA, Canada and Japan, is responsible for providing the scientific instruments and scientific data analysis. ESA selected Thales Alenia Space as prime contractor for the construction of the satellite and its service module, while Airbus Defense and Space was chosen to develop the payload module, including the telescope. NASA provided the detectors for the near-infrared spectrometer and photometer, NISP. (Source: ESA)