Written in SCIENCE he
He telescope space euclid took an important step toward meeting its scientific goals by capturing its first test images. The preliminary results are fascinating and suggest that Euclid could exceed the expectations for which he was designed, detailed the Agency Space European (ESA).
Euclid project manager Giuseppe Racca expressed his excitement after more than 11 years of telescope design and development. Current pictures show only some galaxiesbut when Euclid is fully calibrated, it is expected to capture billions of galaxies to create the largest 3D map of the sky ever seen.
The mission has two main instruments, the VIS (VISible) and the NISP (Near Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer). The VIS instrument captures super-sharp images of billions of galaxies to measure their shapes. Although the test images already offer intriguing insight, the fully calibrated instrument will reveal even more detail.
Yannick Mellier, leader of the Euclid Consortium, described the images as outstanding and highlighted the importance of these first captures for the cosmology observational and the astronomy statistics, and how they will help to understand the nature of energy dark.
On the other hand, Euclid has the NISP instrument, which works in infrared light and has the task of measuring the amount of light that emit the galaxies in different wavelengths, allowing to calculate the distances to each galaxy.
By combining this information with the shapes of the galaxies captured by the VIS instrument, Euclid will map the distribution of galaxies in the universe and will provide valuable information on dark matter and dark energy, the ESA detailed.
In this vein, the Director General of the THATJosef Aschbacher, expressed his confidence that the mission will reveal valuable information about the mysterious 95% of the universe that we still do not fully understand.
While the test images are already impressive, the team of euclid is working to remove unwanted artifacts and further improve the quality of the images before starting the actual phase scientific of the mission.
With months to fine-tune and improve the spacecraft, the scientists and engineers behind the mission have renewed confidence that euclid he will fulfill his promise to discover the deepest secrets of the universe.
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