Copernical Team
Glimpses of the 'galactic zoo': The five new Euclid images
The first images from Europe's Euclid space telescope released Tuesday range from a well-known nebula to never-before-seen galaxies 10 billion light years away, illustrating its wide-lens view of the universe.
Here are the five images—described by Euclid scientist Jean-Charles Cuillandre as "a range of objects from the galactic zoo in terms of diversity, colors and shapes"—starting with the closest to Earth and moving out into the cosmos.
Horsehead Nebula
A giant red horse seems to rear its head against a background of swirling stars, some still being formed in a stellar nursery.
The Horsehead Nebula—also known as Barnard 33—is 1,375 light years away.
The horse's head is in fact dark clouds in front of ultraviolet radiation coming from Sigma Orionis, which is the eastern star on the belt of the Orion constellation.
Euclid’s view of globular cluster NGC 6397
This sparkly image shows Euclid’s view on a globular cluster called NGC 6397. Globular clusters are collections of hundreds of thousands of stars held together by gravity.
Euclid’s view of irregular galaxy NGC 6822
Euclid’s view of the Horsehead Nebula
Euclid shows us a spectacularly panoramic and detailed view of the Horsehead Nebula, also known as Barnard 33 and part of the constellation Orion.
Euclid’s view of the Perseus cluster of galaxies
This incredible snapshot from Euclid is a revolution for astronomy. The image shows 1000 galaxies belonging to the Perseus Cluster, and more than 100 000 additional galaxies further away in the background, each containing up to hundreds of billions of stars.
Euclid’s view of spiral galaxy IC 342
Over its lifetime, our dark Universe detective will image billions of galaxies, revealing the hidden influence that dark matter and dark energy have on them.
Space Summit 2023 Press Conference
Video:
00:45:00
Government ministers representing ESA’s Member States, Associate States and Cooperating States met for a Council meeting on 6 November 2023 during the Space Summit in Seville, Spain. They resolved together to strengthen Europe’s space ambitions to better serve European citizens. At the same time, ESA will open a new era of modernising the implementation of its programmes, responding to growing commercialisation and privatisation of space activities, in particular in the fields of space transportation and space exploration. The opening of the meeting was followed by an introduction by ESA Director General and statements by Member, Associate and
Ireland’s first satellite on its way to launch
After years of development with the support of the ESA Education programme, the Educational Irish Research Satellite 1 (EIRSAT-1) is set to launch in November, marking Ireland’s first steps into space.
Euclid's first images: the dazzling edge of darkness
Euclid’s first images: the dazzling edge of darkness
Video:
00:45:00
ESA is releasing the first full-colour images of the cosmos captured by its recently launched space telescope Euclid. Follow live a broadcast of the reveal on Tuesday 7 November at 13:15 GMT / 14:15 CET. Never before has a telescope been able to create such razor-sharp astronomical images across such a large patch of the sky. Five images show that the telescope is ready for its mission to create the most extensive 3D map of the Universe yet and uncover some of its hidden secrets.