Euclid Space Telescope captures dazzling new images of the cosmos: “Never seen anything like it before”

A bewildering number of shiny galaxies, a purple-orange star nursery and a spiral galaxy similar to our Milky Way: new images were revealed on Thursday by the European Euclid Space Telescope.

It is the second set of images released by the European Space Agency since Euclid launched last year on the first-ever mission to investigate the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy.

“The never-before-seen images demonstrate Euclid’s ability to unlock the secrets of the cosmos and allow scientists to hunt rogue planets, use lensing galaxies to study mysterious matter and explore the evolution of the universe,” said the European Space Agency. a statement.

Scientific data from Euclid was also published for the first time during the six-year mission, which aims to use its broad view to map two billion galaxies across a third of the sky.

Euclid project scientist Rene Laureijs told AFP he was “personally most excited” by the image of a huge cluster of galaxies called Abell 2390. The image of the cluster, which is 2.7 billion light-years away from Earth, encompasses more than 50,000 galaxies.

Just one galaxy – like ours – can be home to hundreds of billions or even trillions of stars, each of which could be larger than the Sun.

In Abell 2390, Euclid was able to detect the faint light from “orphan stars” floating between clusters of galaxies, said Jean-Charles Cuillandre, a French scientist who worked on Euclid.

These stars are ejected from the galaxies, creating “a kind of cloud that surrounds the entire cluster,” Cuillandre told AFP.

According to astronomers, this strange phenomenon indicates the presence of dark matter between the galaxies.

Dark matter and dark energy are believed to make up 95 percent of the universe, but we know almost nothing about them.

Euclid also captured the deepest image ever of Messier 78, a nursery where stars are born 1,300 light-years from Earth in the constellation Orion.

Stars are still forming in the bluish center of the image. After being worn for millions of years, they emerge from the purple and orange clouds at the bottom of the image. “Bright things are trying to emerge,” Cuillandre said.

Laureijs emphasized that “only Euclid can show this in one go.”

That’s because Euclid has a very wide field of view, unlike farsighted fellow space telescope James Webb, its neighbor in a stable floating spot 9.3 million miles from Earth.

Another image, of the massive galaxy cluster Abell 2764, shows a black expanse in which one yellow star stands out.

Cuillandre admitted that this was due to an error in aiming the telescope. But he said the image demonstrated “Euclid’s absolutely unique ability to concentrate light” as it was still able to pick up very faint objects next to the bright star.

Euclid’s image of the young Dorado cluster contained a surprise. Although the cluster was already well studied, Euclid discovered a never-before-seen dwarf galaxy, the scientists said.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Cuillandre said.

In the fifth new image, spiral galaxy NGC 6744 – which bears a striking resemblance to the Milky Way – fans out against a backdrop of twinkling stars.

It’s still early for the mission and the five new images were captured in just one day.

In the coming years, scientists plan to sift through Euclid’s data in hopes of discovering all kinds of celestial bodies, such as “rogue” planets, which float freely through the universe and have no connection to a star.

But researchers have already analyzed the first set of images of Euclid, which were released in November.

In one of 10 pre-print studies published Thursday, scientists looked into the faint light of orphan stars in space Perseus galaxy cluster.

These lost stars “are now trapped in the gravity of dark matter,” Laureijs said.

This remains only “indirect detection of dark matter,” he stressed, adding that it was too early “to say anything about dark energy.”

An image released last year showed a spectacular wide-angle view of Perseus, revealing at least a thousand gravitationally bound galaxies, with another hundred thousand or so scattered across the more distant background – many of which had never been seen before.

The mission did not go entirely smoothly.

In March, a delicate operation successfully melted away a thin layer that had slowed the telescope’s view by heating up one of the telescope’s mirrors.

There are signs that the ice is rebuilding, Laureijs said, adding that the team has time to figure out what to do next.

Launched from Cape Canaveral on July 1, 2023 Atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the $1.5 billion Euclid is stationed about a million miles from Earth on the far side of the moon’s orbit.

Over the course of its six-year mission, the observatory will image the entire sky around the Milky Way and monitor galaxies and galaxy clusters from ten billion years ago.

“The images and associated scientific findings are impressively diverse in terms of the objects and distances observed. They cover a variety of scientific applications, yet represent only 24 hours of observations. They provide just a hint of what Euclid can do,” says Valeria. Pettorino, ESA’s Euclid Project Scientist, said in a statement on Thursday. “We look forward to six more years of data!”

William Harwood contributed to this report.