PARIS: A mind-boggling number of shining galaxies, a purple and orange star nursery and a spiral galaxy similar to our Milky Way: new images were revealed from Europe’s Euclid space telescope on Thursday.
Since Euclid launched last year on the first-ever mission to explore the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy, the European Space Agency has produced two sets of photos.
The six-year mission, which seeks to use its wide view to map two billion galaxies across a third of the sky, also released scientific results for the first time.
Star nursery
Euclid also obtained the lowest-ever picture of Messier 78, an Orion constellation nursery located 1,300 light-years from Earth. In the bluish center of the picture, stars are still developing. They emerge from the purple and orange clouds at the bottom of the picture after gestating for millions of years. The statement “only Euclid can show this in one shot” was emphasized by Laureijs.
