Euclid, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) new telescope, is already flying toward its destination in space, from where it will help us understand the expansion of the Universe. This marks the beginning of the decisive phase of a project that has been in preparation for 10 years and has an investment of more than 1,400 million euros. The launch by the American company SpaceX took place this afternoon at 5:12 p.m. (Peninsula time) from Cape Canaveral (Florida, USA).
Far away is French Guiana, from where the mission was originally supposed to be launched with Russian rockets when ESA and its Russian counterpart were still working hand in hand. When war broke out in Ukraine, Russia withdrew its overseas personnel and ESA hired SpaceX’s services. And billionaire Elon Musk’s company used a Falcon 9 rocket to send the more than two-ton Euclid into orbit around the so-called second Lagrange point, one and a half million kilometers from Earth. The journey, which will last a month, will transition into the operational phase, which will last six years.
Euclid will be crucial in solving one of the most important mysteries in modern astrophysics: the influence of the dark universe on matter as we know it. The latter, from which all living beings are made, as well as the earth, the sun and the rest of the planets and stars, makes up only 5% of the universe. The remaining 95% is the so-called dark universe, consisting of dark matter (25%) and dark energy (70%). Although invisible, hence the name, this universe is important to study because it affects what we can see. Dark matter causes matter to stick together around them, and dark energy causes matter in the universe to fall apart at an ever-increasing rate. That is, dark matter acts as a kind of cosmic glue and dark energy as its solvent.
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The antagonism between these two opposing forces has shaped the history of the universe since its inception. At first the influence of dark matter predominated and therefore the visible matter was combined into still existing formations such as galaxy clusters. But now it is the dark energy that prevails and the same clusters are moving away from each other at an accelerating rate. Euclid will attempt to unravel this mystery: how did this battle between dark matter and dark energy come about and how has it affected the expansion of the universe over the past 10 billion years?
Euclid owes its name to the Greek mathematician Euclid of Alexandria, who lived around 300 BC. and is considered the father of geometry. Because the density of matter and energy is related to the geometry of the universe, the space telescope that will study dark matter and energy was named in his honor.
The telescope will map a third of the sky, creating the most comprehensive map of the universe ever made. It will contain the position and shape of a large number of galaxies, some of which are very distant. Euclid has two high-tech instruments: one for infrared light (used to determine the distance of each galaxy) and one for visible light (which reveals their position and shape). The mission is a feat of engineering, as Guillermo Buenadicha, ESA’s Scientific Operations Coordinator, explains: “To determine the shape of galaxies with the required precision, Euclid needs to focus on the same point in space for long periods of time (more). (more than 700 seconds) with the highest precision to less than 25 milliarcseconds. It would be the equivalent of a person pointing a laser at a two euro coin a kilometer away as it floats in a pool. A control system is used for this, in which the Spanish industry has actively collaborated.”
Euclid’s instruments, when observed from space, will produce images much sharper than those obtained with terrestrial telescopes, which are obscured by the atmosphere. Even compared to other space telescopes, it has fundamental advantages: it will cover a much larger area (albeit with less detail) than James Webb, one of the most precise telescopes of the last decade. These properties make it ideal for observing as yet unknown asteroids in addition to its main task. Bruno Altieri, ESA scientist and custodian of the Euclid Archive, believes the impact of the project will be crucial: “With this data on billions of galaxies, Euclid is expected to revolutionize many areas of astronomy.”
Spanish participation
The scale of this mission has led to the participation of more than 300 institutions from 21 different countries, as well as 80 companies (nine of them from Spain), representing a human capital of 3,500 people. The participation of the Institute for Space Sciences of the CSIC in Barcelona and the European Space Astronomy Center (ESAC), ESA headquarters in Villanueva de la Cañada, Madrid, should be highlighted. In particular, the role of ESAC is crucial, as it will not only lead the mission’s scientific approach, but will also distribute all the data it collects. “Euclid will generate petabytes of data, which will be carefully stored in ESAC’s scientific archives to make them available to the entire scientific community,” says Altieri.
With the launch of the new European space telescope, humanity is approaching realities that it has previously only felt. Although invisible, dark matter and dark energy make up most of everything around us, and we need to shed light on them if we are to understand the universe in which we live. Euclid takes a step in that direction, casually reminding us of the immensity of what we have yet to discover.
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