On Thursday (Nov. 12), the European Space Agency (ESA) shared the first major data release from its Euclid space telescope, including observations of more than 900 million galaxies and 60 million black-hole-powered light sources in the early universe.
Captured over 13 months, this cornucopia of data covers a slice of sky about 9,500 bigger than the full moon — about 14% of the total sky area that Euclid will survey on its planned six-year mission. Each object in the survey is like a "puzzle piece," with its specific light signature, or spectrum), offering clues about its composition and distance from Earth, according to ESA.
A mosaic of 9 gravitational lenses spotted by the Euclid telescope. (Image credit: ESA/ Euclid Consortium)
Gravitational lenses are nature's biggest magnifying glasses. These "Einstein rings" — named after Albert Einstein, who predicted their existence — occur when exceptionally massive objects, like large galaxies, bend the fabric of space-time. This cosmic curvature causes the light emitted by objects behind them to appear magnified, distorted and sometimes duplicated.
"Over 10 years ago, we forecast that Euclid would revolutionise the field of strong lens discovery," Natalie Lines, a Euclid Consortium member working at the University of Portsmouth in the UK, said in the statement. "That day is finally here."
Grand design
The "grand design" spiral galaxy M81, imaged by Euclid. (Image credit: ESA/ Euclid Consortium)While M81 is relatively close to Earth and can be seen with a good pair of binoculars, Euclid's field of view captures it alongside the elliptical galaxy NGC 3077 (bottom left) and crisp clouds of interstellar dust.
The ring galaxy NGC 1291, imaged close up at Euclid's highest resolution. (Image credit: ESA/ Euclid Consortium)
Ring galaxies like this contain a central bulge disconnected from a surrounding ring of stars; astronomers think these galaxies form when a smaller galaxy plunges through the middle of a larger one.
Filling the map
The first piece of the Euclid Wide Survey, covering about 14% of the total sky area that the telescope plans to survey. (Image credit: ESA/ Euclid Consortium)With about 85% of its survey left to go, Euclid is on track to collect one of the most comprehensive datasets of the universe ever. Now, it'll be up to the scientific community to make good use of those observations and find something extraordinary.For more stunning space images, check out our Space Photo of the Week.
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