 A European telescope designed to create the 'biggest ever 3D map of the sky' has beamed back its first test images – and they don't disappoint. Euclid, which launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida on July 1, has been launched by the European Space Agency to explore the composition and evolution of the dark universe. Over the next seven years it will observe billions of galaxies and map more than a third of the sky. The telescope is fitted with two instruments, the VISible instruments (VIS) designed to take 'super sharp images of billions of galaxies to measure their shapes' and the Near-Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer (NISP), which captures the universe in infrared. In the first NIPS image, twinkling stars and a swirling galaxy stand out from the brilliant cosmological backdrop of space. The NISP can also measure the amount of light galaxies emit at various wavelengths. Light has passed through a 'grism' before reaching the detector, creating a mesmerising pattern of long red flashes. Every vertical streak is a star or a galaxy, and the properties of the streak help identify what each object is made of, and how far away it is. The camera in grism mode (Picture: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/Nasa) The first infrared image from Euclid released by the ESA (Picture: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/Nasa) 'We've seen simulated images, we've seen laboratory test images – it's still hard for me to grasp these images are now the real universe,' said NISP instrument scientist Knud Jahnke. 'So detailed, just amazing.' Mark Cropper, from University College London which led the development of VIS, added: 'I'm thrilled by the beauty of these images and the abundance of information contained within them. 'I'm so proud of what the VIS team has achieved and grateful to all of those who have enabled this capability. VIS images will be available for all to use, whether for scientific or){kind=link}
NEWS… BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT
A European telescope designed to create the ‘biggest ever 3D map of the sky’ has beamed back its first test images – and they don’t disappoint.
Euclid, which launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida on July 1, has been launched by the European Space Agency to explore the composition and evolution of the dark universe. Over the next seven years it will observe billions of galaxies and map more than a third of the sky.
The telescope is fitted with two instruments, the VISible instruments (VIS) designed to take ‘super sharp images of billions of galaxies to measure their shapes’ and the Near-Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer (NISP), which captures the universe in infrared.
In the first NIPS image, twinkling stars and a swirling galaxy stand out from the brilliant cosmological backdrop of space.