En collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA), the Euclid collaboration, led by 2,600 people in 18 countries, marked by very strong involvement from the CEA, planned, built and currently operates the Euclid space telescope mission beginning in July 2023 and which extends over a period of six years.
Thanks to an agreement between the CEA and the ESA, Jean-Charles Cuillandre and Emmanuel Bertin, two astronomers from the Observatoire des Sciences de l’Univers de Paris-Saclay (OSUPS) and members of the Astrophysics Department of the CEA Irfu, produced this mosaic under the direct supervision of the ESA. The IT logistics of the project were provided by the OSUPS operations and data center (IDOC), with the technical resources of the VirtualData platform of the Paris-Saclay mesocenter.
The mosaic contains 260 observations made between March 25 and April 8, 2024. In just two weeks, Euclid covered 132 square degrees of the southern sky, more than 500 times the apparent surface of the moon.
This is the first time that such an extensive image of the sky has been produced with such resolution from space, foreshadowing the future results of this space mission.
This first part of the mapping of the Universe already makes it possible to highlight the some 14 million galaxies, among the billion galaxies which will be used to study the hidden influence of dark matter and dark energy on the Universe. This segment also contains tens of millions of stars from our Milky Way.
Further data will be revealed in March 2025 with the release of 50 square degrees of the Euclid survey including an overview of areas of the Euclid deep field. The first year of cosmological data from the mission will be reported in 2026.
| This mosaic produced by ESA’s Euclid space telescopes contains 260 observations collected between March 25 and April 8, 2024. This is 1% of the vast survey that Euclid will capture over six years. In just two weeks, Euclid covered 132 square degrees of the southern sky, more than 500 times the area of the full Moon as seen from Earth. Before the first official release of mission data, the highest resolution for download is 11Kx4K. © ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, CEA Paris-Saclay, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre, E. Bertin, G. Anselmi CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO |
| |
| This image shows an area of the mosaic released by ESA’s Euclid space telescope on October 15, 2024. The area is magnified three times compared to the large mosaic. This part of the southern sky shows many stars from our Milky Way and many galaxies beyond. Using its visible and infrared cameras, Euclid captures stars in their different colors: red stars are cooler, and white/blue stars are hotter. On the right of the image, the galaxy cluster Abell 3381 is visible as a string of galaxies. © ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, CEA Paris-Saclay, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre, E. Bertin, G. Anselmi CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO |
| |
| This image shows an area of the mosaic released by ESA’s Euclid space telescope on October 15, 2024. The area is magnified twelve times compared to the large mosaic. In the middle left, the spiral galaxy NGC 2188 is visible head-on at a distance of 25 million light years. In the upper right corner, the galaxy cluster Abell 3381 is now clearly visible, 678 million light years away. © ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, CEA Paris-Saclay, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre, E. Bertin, G. Anselmi CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO |
| |
| This image shows an area of the mosaic released by ESA’s Euclid space telescope on October 15, 2024. The area is magnified 36 times compared to the large mosaic. In this image, the core of the galaxy cluster Abell 3381 is visible, 678 million light years away. The image shows many galaxies of different shapes and sizes, from massive elliptical galaxies to modest spiral galaxies to tiny, faint dwarf galaxies. © ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, CEA Paris-Saclay, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre, E. Bertin, G. Anselmi CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO |
| |
| This image shows an area of the mosaic released by ESA’s Euclid space telescope on October 15, 2024. The area is magnified 150 times compared to the large mosaic. To the left of the image, Euclid captured two galaxies (called ESO 364-G035 and G036) interacting with each other, 420 million light-years away. On the right of the image, the galaxy cluster Abell 3381 is visible, 678 million light years away. © ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, CEA Paris-Saclay, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre, E. Bertin, G. Anselmi CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO |
| |
| This image shows an area of the mosaic released by ESA’s Euclid space telescope on October 15, 2024. The area is zoomed in 600 times compared to the large mosaic. In this image, a single spiral galaxy (called ESO 364-G036) is visible in great detail, 420 million light years away. This image shows 0.0003% of the original 208 gigapixel image, or 1/330,000 of the area of the main Euclid mosaic. © ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, CEA Paris-Saclay, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre, E. Bertin, G. Anselmi CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO |
