The European space telescope “Euclid” captured galaxies and twinkling stars in its first images, after traveling a distance of up to a million miles from Earth.
The telescope was launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on July 1 and arrived at its destination, an observation point known as the second Lagrange point, on a mission to shed light on two of the universe’s greatest mysteries: dark energy.
And dark matter, according to the British news agency (BA Media).
The European Space Agency described this as a “milestone” that the telescope will achieve its goals.
She said that “spiral and elliptical galaxies, stars near and far, star clusters and much more” can be seen in the images released on Monday, although the instruments involved captured a part of the sky smaller than the full moon.
“After more than 11 years of designing and developing Euclid, it is very exhilarating and exciting to see these first images,” said project manager Giuseppe Racca.
“The fully calibrated Euclid will eventually observe billions of galaxies to create the largest 3D map of the sky ever.”
