The mosaic combines 260 visible- and infrared-light observations made between March 25 and April 8, 2024. It spans 132 square degrees of the southern sky—more than 500 times the apparent area of a full Moon—and represents 1% of Euclid’s planned six-year wide survey, according to NASA. [S1]
The first section contains around 100 million stars and galaxies. NASA says about 14 million of those galaxies could help Euclid study dark energy, the name astronomers give to the unknown cause of the universe’s accelerating expansion. The wider survey is intended to measure the shapes, distances and motions of billions of galaxies. [S1]
The work extends beyond the telescope. The Euclid Consortium brings together scientists from 300 institutes across 15 European countries, the United States, Canada and Japan. NASA says its Jet Propulsion Laboratory designed and fabricated electronics for Euclid’s near-infrared instrument and led the procurement and delivery of its detectors; a NASA science center at Caltech will archive the data and support U.S.-based investigations. [S1]
As of October 2024, the mission planned to release another 53 square degrees of survey data, including a preview of its deep-field areas, in March 2025, followed by its first year of cosmology data in 2026. [S1]
Source documents
- Snippet of Euclid Mission’s Cosmic Atlas Released by ESAhttps://www.nasa.gov/missions/euclid/snippet-of-euclid-missions-cosmic-atlas-released-by-esa/