2023-07-29 19:15:00
In the next few days, ESA’s Euclid spacecraft will reach its parking spot in space, Lagrange point 2, around 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. There the earth shields the sun, a requirement for sensitive space telescopes. The James Webb telescope is also parked there.
On its journey – following the launch on July 2nd on board a Falcon 9 rocket – the probe dutifully transmits the first test signals. “Euclid” is well on its way to “unveiling the cosmic mystery of dark matter and dark energy,” according to the ESA control room. “The atmosphere is very good here,” said ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher, who comes from Austria.
sky mapping
With his high-resolution visible-light and near-infrared telescope, Euclid will look back into the universe’s past and explore its evolution over the past 10 billion years. The goal is “to create a 4-D map, so to speak, in which time is the fourth dimension,” says Markus Kissler-Patig from ESA. In total, data on billions of galaxies is to be collected.
The device, which weighs two tons, is 4.7 meters high and 2.5 meters wide, has a reflecting telescope with a diameter of 1.2 meters. This should cover a good third of the sky. From the precise knowledge of the distribution of visible matter, the scientists hope to be able to draw conclusions regarding the still mysterious forces that help determine the forces of attraction in the universe (dark matter). Dark energy is likely to play a crucial role in the expansion of space and its acceleration. With the help of an enormous amount of data on distortion effects due to large masses (gravitational lensing), one wants to draw conclusions regarding images of galaxies or galaxy clusters, the amount of dark matter and the nature of dark energy. “Gravitational lensing is the only method that allows us to directly map the mass distribution in the universe,” say Tim Schrabback and Francine Marleau, who are collaborating on the project with their research teams from the University of Innsbruck. In this context, Euclid’s data set will outperform all previous programs by at least a factor of ten.
30 to 40 Netflix movies
Euclid will transmit around 100 gigabytes per day home, as ESA systems engineer for the mission, Tobias Boenke, explains: “That’s around 30 to 40 Netflix films.” Every day the camera eye opens to capture part of the sky, sometimes with very long exposure times. In the end, everything should be put together into one giant map. In any case, the cosmic download poses great challenges for those involved.
With “Euclid” it is now possible for the first time to obtain images of a large part of the sky that are as precise as we have been used to, for example, since the Hubble telescope. “These data will be invaluable for a variety of research fields within astronomy and astrophysics,” Marleau said.
All in all, the mission with its costs of around 1.4 billion euros is practically inexpensive, says ESA Flight Director Andreas Rudolph: In this way you can deliver three times as much data as the James Webb telescope with only around ten percent of the budget.
The Viennese space company Beyond Gravity (formerly Ruag Space) provided interface electronics and insulation for Euclid, the company Terma equipment for tests.
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