Pre-Launch: Europe's Euclid Space Telescope to Explore The Dark Universe | SpaceX

Pre-Launch: Europe's Euclid Space Telescope to Explore The Dark Universe | SpaceX

Euclid on launch pad

Euclid roll-out to launchpad

Last glimpse of Euclid space telescope on Earth

Eye of Euclid

The 1.2-m diameter main mirror of ESA’s Euclid mission to unveil the dark Universe, seen during assembly, integration and testing.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the European Space Agency’s Euclid mission at its launch pad in Cape Canaveral, Florida, where it was successfully launched at 11:12 am ET on July 1, 2023.

The European Space Agency’s Euclid mission is designed to explore the composition and evolution of the dark Universe. Euclid will chart how the Universe has expanded and how large-scale structure is distributed across space and time, revealing more about the role of gravity and the nature of dark energy and dark matter.  

Four weeks after launch, Euclid will enter in orbit around Sun-Earth Lagrange point L2. Once in orbit, mission controllers will start the activities to verify all functions of the spacecraft, check out the telescope and finally turn the instruments on.  

The goal of the European Space Agency’s Euclid mission is to bring the dark side of the Universe to light. Based on the way galaxies rotate and orbit one another, and the way in which the Universe is expanding, astronomers believe that two unseen entities dominate the composition of our cosmos. They call these mysterious components dark matter and dark energy, yet to date we have not been able to detect either of them directly, only inferring their presence from the effects they have on the Universe at large.

The European Space Agency’s Euclid mission will create a 3D-map of the Universe, with the third dimension representing time itself. The further away a galaxy is located, the longer its light has taken to reach us and so the earlier in cosmic history we will see it. By observing billions of galaxies out to a distance of 10 billion light-years, scientists will be able to chart the position and velocity of galaxies over immense distances and through most of cosmic history, and trace the way the Universe has expanded during that time. Euclid’s extraordinary optics will also reveal subtle distortions in the appearance of galaxies.

From this wealth of new data, astronomers will be able to infer the properties of dark energy and dark matter more precisely than ever before. This will help theorists pin down the nature of these mysterious components and develop a refined understanding of how gravity behaves at the largest distances.

Find out more about the Euclid Mission: 

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Euclid

Image Credits: European Space Agency (ESA)/Airbus/SpaceX

Release Dates: June 30-July 1, 2023

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