The two Euclid tools have captured their first test images. The fascinating results indicate that the space telescope it will achieve the scientific goals for which it was designed, and perhaps much more.
Although there are still months left before Euclid offers a new real vision of the cosmosachieving this milestone means that the scientists and engineers responsible for the mission can be confident that the telescope and instruments are functioning properly.
“After more than 11 years of design and development from Euclid, it turns out stimulating and enormously exciting to see these first images,” says project director Euclid, Joseph Racca, In a note released by European Space Agency (THAT).
“It’s even more incredible if we think that here you can only see some galaxies, produced with minimal system adjustment. The fully calibrated Euclid will eventually look billions of galaxies to create the greatest 3D map of heaven ever made”.
The Director General of ESA, Joseph Aschbacher, congratulated the Euclid team: ‘It’s great to see that the latest addition to ESA’s science mission fleet is already performing so well. I have every confidence that the team behind the mission will be able to use Euclid to reveal a lot 95% of the Universe of which at the moment we know so little”.
Carol Mundellthe agency’s director of science agrees: ‘Our teams have worked tirelessly since the launch of Euclid on July 1, and these first engineering images offer a tantalizing glimpse into the extraordinary data we can expect from the telescope.’
The universe in visible light
Euclid’s VISible (VIS) tool will take super sharp images billions of galaxies to measure their shape. By looking closely at this first image, ESA astronomers say they can ‘get an idea’ of the abundance VIS will bring.
Test image for launching the Euclid VIS tool. / THAT
While some galaxies are very easy to spot, many others are fuzzy blobs hidden among the stars, waiting to be revealed by the space telescope in the future.
Mark Cropper of University College London led the development of the VIS. “I am delighted with the beauty of these images and the abundance of information they contain”, he assures. Furthermore, he confirms that the images of the VIS will be available to everyone, both for scientific and other purposes ”.
For her part, Reiko Nakajima, VIS instrument scientist, adds: “The land trials They don’t offer pictures of galaxies either star clustersbut here they are all in this one field.”
The image is even more special when you consider that Euclid’s team was surprised when they first turned on the instrument and detected an unexpected pattern of light tainting the images.
Subsequent investigations indicated that part of the sunlight it slipped into the vessel, probably through a small hole; By rotating Euclid, the team realized that this light is only detected in certain orientations, so by avoiding certain angles, VIS will be able to accomplish its mission.
The universe in infrared light
Euclid’s Near Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer (NISP) instrument does a double job: imaging galaxies in infrared light and measuring the amount of light that galaxies emit at various wavelengths. This second function allows you to directly calculate the distance at which each galaxy is located.
Combination of information about the distance relative to the shape of the galaxies, measured by the VIS, we will be able to map the distribution of galaxies in the Universe and their evolution over time. Ultimately, this 3D map will tell us about dark matter and dark energy.
In the image below, before reaching the NISP detector, light from the Euclid telescope passed through a filter that measures brightness at a specific infrared wavelength.
Test image for implementing the Euclid NISP tool. / THAT
In this second image, light from the Euclid telescope had passed through a grism before reaching the detector. This device divide the light of each star and galaxy from wavelengths, so that each vertical streak of light in the image is a star or galaxy. This special way of looking at the Universe allows you to determine what each galaxy consists of, which allows you to estimate its distance from the Earth.
Over the coming months, ESA and other industry teams will continue to carry out all the necessary tests and checks to ensure that Euclid works as well as possible. Once this stage of commissioning and performance verification is complete, it will begin real science, according to those in charge of the mission. At that point, ESA will release a new set of images to demonstrate what the mission is capable of.
