A European space telescope blasted off Saturday (1st July 2023) on a quest to explore the mysterious and invisible realm known as the dark universe.* SpaceX launched the European Space Agency’s Euclid observatory towards its ultimate destination 1.5 million km away, the Webb Space Telescope’s neighbourhood.* It will take a month to get there and another two months before it starts its ambitious six-year survey this autumn.* Named after the ancient Greek mathematician, Euclid will scour billions of galaxies covering more than one-third of the sky.* By pinpointing the location and shape of galaxies up to 10 billion light-years away — almost all the way back to the cosmos-creating Big Bang — scientists hope to glean insight into the dark energy and dark matter that make up most of the universe and keep it expanding.* The telescope’s highly anticipated 3D map of the cosmos will span both space and time in a bid to explain how the dark universe evolved and why its expansion is speeding up.* The lead scientist for the $1.5 billion mission (€1.4 billion) said Euclid will measure dark energy and dark matter with unprecedented precision.* Four metres tall and almost as wide, Euclid sports a 1.2-metre telescope and two scientific instruments capable of observing the cosmos in both visible light and near-infrared..Source : Telegraph India
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