REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA—A mission to unravel the mysteries of the dark universe was launched on Saturday (1/7/2023) UK time. The two-tonne telescope, named after the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid, began a million-mile journey as it lifted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The research rocket will head to an area in space known as the second Lagrange point (L2), where the gravitational forces of Earth and the Sun are roughly equal, creating a stable location for the spacecraft.
The goal of the mission led by the European Space Agency (ESA) is to better understand the two mysterious components that make up 95 percent of the universe, namely dark matter and dark energy. Dark matter holds galaxies together creating environments for stars, planets and life. Dark energy, on the other hand, is a mysterious phenomenon that pushes galaxies away from each other, and causes the acceleration of the expansion of the universe.
Euclid will chart the last 10 billion years of cosmic history over a third of the sky, creating the largest and most accurate 3D map of the universe ever created. Experts hope this will help answer two key questions, namely, what are the fundamental physical laws of the universe, and how did the universe originate and what is it made of.
The UK has donated 37 million pounds (about Rp 707 billion) to the 850 million pound mission, with scientists playing a key role in designing and building the research and directing one of the two scientific instruments on board. Professor of the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College London (one of four science coordinators for Euclid), Tom Kitching said researchers were eager to answer a very basic puzzle.
“Is our model of the universe correct? What is dark energy? Is it vacuum energy (virtual particle energy that appears and disappears in empty space)? Is it a new particle field that we didn’t expect? Or maybe Einstein’s theory of gravity is wrong. Whatever the answer, a revolution in physics is almost certain,” Kitching said Daily MailSaturday (1/7/2023).
Euclid was scheduled to launch last year on a Russian Soyuz rocket, but after the invasion of Ukraine, ESA signed a deal with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to use his Falcon 9 rocket. The rocket is scheduled to launch on July 1 at 16:11 British time from Cape Canaveral. Euclid takes a month to reach his goal.
Scientists from the Mullard Space Science Laboratory have led the development of the optical camera known as VIS, a science instrument that will take pictures of the distant universe. VIS camera team lead professor Mark Cropper said the VIS instrument will image a large part of the distant Universe at nearly the same resolution as Telescope Hubble Space. VIS is said to observe more of the Universe in one day than Hubble did in 25 days.
The data will allow researchers to infer the distribution of dark matter in the universe more precisely than ever before. “Imaged galaxies are up to 10 billion years old so we will also be looking at how dark matter evolved over most of the universe’s history. The universe on this scale has not yet been seen in this level of detail,” said Cropper.
Six year mission Euclid aims to research the dark universe to better understand why he is thriving. It will use a cosmic phenomenon known as gravitational lensing, in which matter acts like a magnifying glass, bending and distorting light from galaxies and clusters behind them, to capture high-quality images.
The wide field of view of VIS means that while it will take images that are nearly as sharp as the Hubble Space Telescope, it will cover a much larger area of the sky. Each image requires 300 high-definition TV screens to display, and will make it possible to measure the shape of more than 1.5 billion galaxies. “This is a big, unprecedented picture,” said Cropper.
The data Euclid sent back will also help astronomers gain insight into the elusive dark matter, which is a particle that doesn’t absorb, reflect, or emit light. Dark matter cannot be seen directly, but scientists know it because of the effect it has on directly observable objects.
The probe also carried an infrared light instrument, called NISP. NISP is led by scientists in France. NISP aims to measure the distances to galaxies, which would explain how fast the universe is expanding.
Andy Taylor, University of Edinburgh professor who led the analysis of gravitational lensing data for Euclid, said: “This is a very exciting time for astronomy, and cosmology in particular. “Euclid is designed to answer some of the biggest questions we have about the universe,” said Taylor.
Professor and director of the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation (ICG) at the University of Portsmouth, Adam Amara was one of the first to propose the telescope idea 18 years ago and was involved in its design and specifications during the early stages. “There’s a part of me that can’t believe this is really happening. In 2005, a small group of us launched this idea,” said Amara.
Now, nearly 20 years later, nearly 3,000 people have worked together to make this dream come true. The next phase, in which researchers actually measure the universe is sure to be very exciting.
2023-07-01 04:57:53
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