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What just happened? This week, the European Space Agency’s Euclid Mission released its first batch survey data. It provides a glimpse at hundreds of thousands galaxies of different shapes and sizes as well as galaxy clusters, galactic nuclei that are active, and transient phenomena such as supernovae and Gamma-ray Bursts. The data, which is arranged in three mosaics covering a large area of sky, shows the mission’s ability to explore the large scale organization of galaxies in the cosmic web.
“Euclid shows itself once again to be the ultimate discovery machine. It is surveying galaxies on the grandest scale, enabling us to explore our cosmic history and the invisible forces shaping our Universe,” Prof. Carole Mundell, Director of Science at ESA said. She said that this data release provides scientists with a wealth of information to answer some of the most fascinating questions in modern science.
In only one week of observations Euclid identified 26 million galaxies. The farthest are located up to 10.5 billion light-years. These deep fields contain a small number of bright quasars that are visible even from greater distances. Euclid will return to these regions tens or hundreds of times over the next few years, capturing more distant galaxies, and making them truly “deep” by the mission’s end in 2030.
The initial glimpse of 63 square degrees of the sky previews the scale of Euclid’s grand cosmic atlas, which will eventually cover one-third of the entire sky – 14,000 square degrees – in high-quality detail.
“We will observe each deep field between 30 and 52 times over Euclid’s six-year mission, each time improving the resolution of how we see those areas, and the number of objects we manage to observe,” said Valeria Pettorino, ESA’s Euclid project scientist. “Just think of the discoveries that await us.”
Images of galaxies of different shapes taken by Euclid.
Euclid’s high-resolution Visible Image System (VIS) instrument and near-infrared (NISP) instrument are vital for measuring galaxy distances and shapes, respectively. They provide insights into the large scale organization of galaxies in the cosmic web. This is crucial for understanding dark energy and dark matter, which make up about 95 percent the universe.
Euclid will capture images of more than 1.5 billion galaxies and generate around 100 GB data per day. When analyzing such a large dataset, it is crucial to combine AI algorithms with citizen science. “We’re at a pivotal moment in terms of how we tackle large-scale surveys in astronomy,” Mike Walmsley is a Euclid Consortium Scientist. “AI is a fundamental and necessary part of our process in order to fully exploit Euclid’s vast dataset.”
Strong Gravitational Lenses Captured by Euclid.
Euclid can also be used to study gravitational lensing – a phenomenon in which light from distant galaxies gets distorted by the foreground. The mission has identified 500 strong lens candidate, the majority of which were unknown. Euclid hopes to capture thousands of lenses during its mission using AI models, citizen science, and expert vetting.
In October 2026, the mission’s first data on cosmology will be released.
