Euclid Spacecraft Successfully Launched to Explore Dark Matter and Dark Energy
July 1, 2023
Cape Canaveral, Florida – The European Space Agency (ESA) has successfully launched its Euclid spacecraft on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The mission aims to explore the mysterious components of the Universe, dark matter, and dark energy.
Euclid’s launch, which took place at 11:12 a.m. EDT, marks the beginning of an ambitious endeavor to uncover the nature of these enigmatic entities and help answer the fundamental question of what the Universe is made of. The spacecraft will create an accurate 3D map of the Universe by observing billions of galaxies and employing advanced scientific instruments to analyze their properties.
Following the launch, the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, confirmed the acquisition of a signal from Euclid. The spacecraft is now on its month-long journey to the Sun-Earth Lagrange point L2, located 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.
“The successful launch of Euclid marks the beginning of a new scientific endeavor to help us answer one of the most compelling questions of modern science,” said ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher. “Euclid has been made possible by ESA’s leadership, the effort and expertise of hundreds of European industrial and scientific institutions, and through collaboration with international partners.”
The Euclid spacecraft is equipped with two highly advanced scientific instruments, the visible-wavelength camera (VIS) and the Near-Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer (NISP), developed by the Euclid Consortium. These instruments will allow Euclid to examine visible and infrared light from distant galaxies and create a 3D map of their distributions and the dark matter in the Universe.
Carole Mundell, ESA’s Director of Science, emphasized the importance of Euclid’s mission, stating, “If we want to understand the Universe we live in, we need to uncover the nature of dark matter and dark energy and understand the role they played in shaping our cosmos. Euclid will deliver the most detailed map of the extra-galactic sky, providing invaluable data for the scientific community.”
Over the course of its six-year mission, Euclid will observe billions of galaxies up to 10 billion light-years away, revealing the shape, position, and movement of galaxies and how matter is distributed across vast distances. This will aid in understanding the expansion of the Universe and the properties of dark matter and dark energy.
The wealth of data collected by Euclid will be made publicly available to the global scientific community. It will be processed by the Euclid Consortium, a group of over 2,000 scientists from more than 300 institutes across Europe, the US, Canada, and Japan. Processed data products, including calibrated images and spectra, will be released yearly and accessible via the Astronomy Science Archive at ESA’s European Space Astronomy Centre in Spain.
Euclid’s mission represents a significant milestone in space exploration and the pursuit of knowledge about the Universe’s mysterious components. With its advanced instruments and ambitious goals, the spacecraft is expected to provide groundbreaking insights into the fundamental nature of our cosmos.