Stunning first look at panoramic universe revealed in ‘pristine detail’
Talk about getting starstruck.
The stunning “first piece” of a map detailing the greater universe, taken by the super-powered Euclid space telescope, has finally been unearthed in “pristine detail.”
Filled with over 1 million dazzling sources of stars and galaxies, the European Space Agency on Wednesday released mindblowing images of what deep space and our own Milky Way galaxy are made of.
A panoramic mosaic, which has been enlarged 600 times, highlights the structures of a spiral galaxy along with 260 sightings Euclid had made between late March and early April.
It covered 132 square degrees of the southern sky — a range over 500 times of the moon’s area.
It is “full of a variety of sources that will help scientists discover new ways to describe the Universe,” Euclid scientist Valeria Pettorino said.
When zoomed in — and still in crispt detail — especially dim clouds can be seen in between the stars of the Milky Way as well. They are called “galactic cirrus” as they evoke the shape of our own atmospheric cloud covering.
They shine in far-infrared light as they reflect other bright sources within the galaxy, the telescope observed.
The awe-inspiring images are only a humbling 1% of the 3D map the July 2023 launched Euclid spacecraft is rendering over a six-year span.
The goal is creating the most ever detailed mapping of “great cosmic atlas” for over 10 billion lightyears, according to the ESA.
Last year, the telescope highlighted stunning dark matter much of the universe is comprised of as well.
Already, 12% of the broader map has been observed and another planned release of incoming analysis, including especially deep portions of space’s reaches, is slated for 2025 with cosmology data going public in 2026.