2023-06-21 20:13:35
The European Space Agency (ESA) will launch a telescope into space to try to unravel two great enigmas of the universe, dark matter and dark energy.
The telescope Euclidwill go aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from the American company SpaceX.
The satellite was made by the company Thales Alenia Space, and it is a ship weighing two tons, 4.7 meters high and 3.5 meters long. It is planned that it can be positioned near the space telescope James-Webb1.5 million kilometers from Earth.
From this location, called the Lagrange 2 point, Euclid, with that name in homage to the father of geometry, the Greek Euclid, will project a three-dimensional map of the universe, which will include 2,000 million galaxies covering a third of the celestial vault and going back in time up to 10 billion years.
This unprecedented cartography aims to reconstruct the history of the universe “by stretches of time”explained the astrophysicist Yannick Mellier, from the Euclid consortium, at a press conference on June 13.
He The objective is to glimpse a corner of the veil that hides dark matter and energy, which make up 95% of the universe.but whose nature is completely unknown, since they are not visible.
Both components are, for now, purely theoretical, but scientists need them to understand the cosmos.
According to his hypothesis, dark matter would act like a cement inside galaxies, which would explain why they do not disperse in clouds of stars.
As for dark energy, its existence is necessary to explain the accelerated expansion of the universe.
Thanks to this mission, astronomers hope to better understand how both components act and evolve over time.
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