On Tuesday (Nov. 7), astronomers hailed the Euclid telescope’s ability to capture stunning intricacies of the universe — in remarkably few hours — as they revealed the mission’s first portfolio of full-color images.
“We have now never seen astronomical images like this before, containing a lot detail,” René Laureijs, a project scientist on the Euclid mission, said in a press release. “They’re much more beautiful and sharp than we could have hoped for, showing us many previously unseen features in well-known areas of the nearby universe.”
Mission scientists gathered in Darmstadt, Germany to disclose and discuss the telescope’s first five vibrant images of assorted pockets within the universe. Euclid’s first test images were released at the top of July, but vital as they were, these visuals barely scratched level 1 of this telescope’s abilities.
Wealthy in color in addition to in nuance, the brand new snapshots capture previously unseen features in even some deeply studied cosmic objects, assuring astronomers that the telescope is, the truth is, able to get occurring its ambitious task: Mapping the dark, invisible side of our universe.
The hope is to uncover the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy by studying billions of galaxies that reside as much as 10 billion light-years away from Earth. And sure enough, much to the thrill of the team’s scientists, just a few of those faraway objects already appear in Euclid’s first batch of images.
Without further ado, allow us to begin our sightseeing tour through the eyes of Euclid.
Related: James Webb Space Telescope will help Euclid spacecraft investigate dark energy and dark matter
The ‘Hidden Galaxy’ comes into view
Considered one of the primary galaxies Euclid observed is nicknamed the “Hidden Galaxy,” and resides about 11 million light-years away from Earth. It’s aptly named, because it sits behind the disk of our home galaxy, the Milky Way. The Hidden Galaxy is thus often obscured by cosmic gas, dark dust and vibrant stars, but Euclid managed to make use of its near-infrared instrument to look past that blanket and collect light from the galaxy’s stars — in only an hour of observing time.
“This image might look normal, as if every telescope could make such a picture, but that will not be true,” Leslie Hunt of the National Institute for Astrophysics in Italy said within the statement. “What’s so special here is that we’ve a large view covering all the galaxy, but we may also zoom in to differentiate single stars and star clusters.”
The “Hidden Galaxy,” or IC 342 as astronomers call it, is a spiral galaxy just like the Milky Way. Since it is hard to review our own galaxy as we will only see it edge-on (we live inside it, in spite of everything), scientists must depend on dissecting other galaxies that provide us a greater galactic view. Studying IC 342 can due to this fact teach us lots in regards to the Milky Way — specifically, the brand new details revealed by Euclid can assist trace star formation history and evolution, Hunt added.
Old and latest galaxies glimmer within the Perseus Cluster
This familiar picture shows over 1,000 galaxies glowing within the Perseus constellation, which sits about 240 million light-years away from Earth. Hosting 1000’s of galaxies enveloped in superheated gas, this galaxy cluster is regarded as one of the vital massive structures within the universe.
The massive galactic members of this cluster might be spotted by their yellowish-white haloes, akin to street lamps in a foggy night. Hundreds of stars are noticeably spiked, an optical artifact consequently of how light diffracts and bends around edges of Euclid’s mirrors. As compared, images clicked by the Hubble Telescope have 4 such spikes, formed attributable to its square mirrors while those by James Webb Space Telescope feature six large spikes, because of its hexagonal mirrors.
Further away, the activities of 100,000 other galaxies are seen as countless white, yellow and red specks of sunshine. Few are, the truth is, so distant that their light has traveled 10 billion years to succeed in Euclid’s detectors. Astronomers are particularly enthusiastic about scouting out more of those very tiny, very faint galaxies. Principally, cosmological simulations that scientists create appear to predict the universe must contain lots more of those small entities than what we have found thus far.
“With Euclid, we are going to give you the option to see them, in the event that they indeed exist in such a big number as predicted,” said Jean-Charles Cuillandre of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission in Paris.
A sprig of pink stars in NGC 6822
At just 1.6 million light-years from Earth, NGC 6822 looks less like a galaxy and more like a twig of superb mist. Its pink stars appear to float at nighttime expanse of space. Scientists say that is because this galaxy is probably going the seed for a future, more structured galaxy like our own.
NGC 6822 marks the primary irregular galaxy that Euclid observed. Even though it is an element of the identical galaxy cluster because the Milky Way, NGC 6822 surprisingly accommodates heavy metal elements not otherwise common in young, still-forming galaxies.
One other splatter of stars glitter in NGC 6397
Amongst Euclid’s seminal muses, there may be also this shimmering image featuring NGC 6397 cluster, a set of 1000’s of stars which can be sure by gravity and orbit within the disk of the Milky Way about 7,800 light-years from Earth.
Astronomers are particularly enthusiastic about those faint stars lying within the outskirts of the cluster, barely illuminated within the crowded background, otherwise drowned by the shine of their brighter counterparts.
Using Euclid, astronomers will search this cluster for something called a tidal tail, which is a trail of stars extending outward from the item attributable to gravitational interactions with other galaxies outside of the cluster. In the event that they find such tails in NGC 6397, they’ll calculate things reminiscent of how the cluster orbits our galaxy, which could then reveal the distribution and behavior of dark matter halo within the Milky Way.
“We expect the entire globular clusters within the Milky Technique to have them, but thus far we’ve only seen them around just just a few,” Davide Massari of the National Institute for Astrophysics in Italy said within the statement. “If there are not any tidal tails, then there may very well be a dark matter halo across the globular cluster, stopping the outer stars from escaping.”
The long-lasting Horsehead Nebula shines in latest detail
The ultimate image in Euclid’s latest portfolio is an unbridled look of the famous Horsehead Nebula, a big, dark molecular cloud about 1,500 light-years from Earth within the constellation Orion.
A really vibrant star, Sigma Orionis, placed above the Horsehead and out of doors Euclid’s field of view is seen pumping ultraviolet radiation into the stellar nursery, causing the background clouds to glow. The Horsehead’s head itself looks dark because its thick hydrogen clouds block background light, astronomers say.
The clouds across the nebula have already dissipated, while the Horsehead’s pillar will crumble in one other 5 million years, astronomers say. Using Euclid’s capabilities, scientists are hoping to identify a number of dim, young and previously unseen Jupiter-like planets and baby stars within the region.
From its vantage point one million miles (1.6 million km) from Earth, Euclid will soon begin its six-year data collection of the cosmos. Ad astra, Euclid!