Euclid

The European Space Agency (ESA) has successfully launched the Euclid space telescope on July 1

Key Point

It was launched with the help of a Spacex Falcon 9 rocket from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and will remain operational for a minimum of six years.

What is Euclid?

Euclid is a 1.2-meter-diameter telescope that will travel to L2, about 1 million miles away from Earth.
A visible to near-infrared space telescope developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Euclid Consortium
The telescope will spend two months calibrating its instruments before commencing a six-year survey of one-third of the sky.
It is named after the Greek mathematician Euclid of Alexandria.
This mission is part of ESA’s Cosmic Vision programme, which plans to explore the origin and components of the Universe and the fundamental laws that govern it.

Mission Scope

The telescope will travel to Lagrange point L2 which is about 1 million miles away from Earth.
The Euclid mission’s main goal is to investigate the “dark side” of the universe, focusing on dark matter and dark energy.

NOTE- Dark matter comprises 85 per cent of the universe’s matter, however, it has never been directly observed, while dark energy is a mysterious force responsible for the universe’s accelerating expansion.

It aims to create a highly accurate 3D map of the universe by observing billions of galaxies up to 10 billion light-years away.
It will reveal how dark energy has influenced the stretching and separation of matter over cosmic time.

Scientific Instruments and Observations

A visible-wavelength camera (the VISible instrument): It will look for tiny distortions in the shapes of distant galaxies from different points in time to highlight the tussle between the pull of gravity and the push of dark energy.
A near-infrared camera/spectrometer(the Near-Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer): It will look at how quickly the galaxies are moving away from each other, which will offer scientists insight into both dark energy and the working of gravity.
The detectors of the near-infrared instruments have been supplied by NASA, making the American agency an important part of the Euclid Consortium.