European astronomers on Tuesday released the first images from the newly launched Euclid space telescope, designed to uncover the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy – hidden forces thought to account for 95 percent of the universe.
The European Space Agency, which leads the six-year mission as a partner with NASA, said the images were the sharpest of their kind, enhancing the telescope’s ability to monitor billions of galaxies up to 10 billion light years away. Displays.
ESA said the images span four regions of the relatively nearby universe, including 1,000 galaxies belonging to the giant Perseus Cluster just 240 million light-years away and more than 100,000 galaxies spread out in the background.
Scientists believe that huge, seemingly organized structures like Perseus can only form if dark matter is present.
“We think we only understand 5 percent of the universe: that’s the matter we can see,” ESA science director Carol Mundell told Reuters.