2023-07-05 18:13:05
This weekend saw the launch of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Euclid mission, a space telescope aimed at unraveling the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy. The 2.2-ton spacecraft with its 1.2-meter telescope was flown into space by the SpaceX Falcon. 9 missiles are now on their way to reach their orbit around the sun. The mission was originally supposed to be launched using a Russian Soyuz rocket from the European Spaceport in French Guiana, but following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, cooperation between the European Space Agency and Russia broke down, so instead, the telescope was launched from the head of the Space Force. Canaveral Station, Florida, and at 12:11 a.m. ET on Saturday, July 1, according to the Verge. The telescope goes to an orbit called L2, the second Lagrangian point. This is the same orbit used by the James Webb Space Telescope and other space telescopes. This orbit provides high stability, which is especially important for a mission like Euclid’s aiming cluster. Detailed Observations of the Universe Euclid should reach level two in four weeks, then prepare for two months before beginning science observations in early October. Euclid will conduct extensive and deep surveys of the universe and take pictures to create a map of the universe to help define two mysterious concepts: dark matter, which makes up regarding 27 percent of everything in existence, and dark energy, which is regarding 68 years old. The percentage of the universe of every atom, molecule, and piece of matter that we can observe makes up the small remaining 5 percent known as ordinary or baryonic matter. We know that dark matter and dark energy must exist because of the motions of galaxies and the way the universe is expanding, however, it is very difficult to study because dark matter does not interact with light and dark energy is an unknown form of energy. So to find evidence of this we have to look very broadly. “If you want to study the universe and see the universe as a whole, you have to do a big survey,” Giuseppe Rocca, ESA’s Euclid Project Manager, explained in a press conference. Most of the visible universe on Earth. During its six-year mission, the Euclid telescope will survey 36 percent of the sky, and for observing a large area, the telescope has a very wide field of view. This refers to the amount of sky visible through a telescope, and in Euclid’s case the field of view is 2.5 times the size of the Moon. Compare that to, say, the Hubble Space Telescope, whose field of view is only 1/12 the size of the Moon. Hubble can image things like galaxies or nebulae in great detail, but it takes regarding 1,000 years. Survey of a similar area of the sky to Euclid’s.
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