This meant the telescope was unstable and unable to precisely point at its targets, a crucial requirement for the mission’s science goals. The biggest issue arose when the Fine Guidance Sensor was not able to reliably track guide stars. Repeating observations at a later moment could potentially negate these issues entirely. Luckily, scientists can minimize the impact to less than 1% of the data by simply removing the affected data. When X-rays from solar flares reach Euclid’s detectors, they interfere with the observations. “Fortunately, this could be moved outside the focal plane by rolling the telescope by 3 degrees, so it’s gone now.”Ī second issue was caused by the Sun, which is currently in a period of high activity. “We now know it was caused by a thruster bracket that stuck out past the sun shield and reflected light inwards,” explained Valentijn. When Euclid sent back its first images, the team noticed the telescope picked up flares of stray sunlight. A trifecta never before achieved.Įxplore these 5⃣ cosmic portraits that show Euclid's full potential and□ /viqWrx1dQ2 The first images from #ESAEuclid are here: razor-sharp, wide & looking far into the distant Universe. Welcome to the dazzling edge of darkness!□ Problems arose soon after the telescope turned on its detectors for the first time, though. With the issues resolved, the telescope can finally begin mapping a third of the sky to study dark matter and dark energy.Įuclid’s commissioning initially began without issues while the telescope was still on its way to Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2 (L2) after lifting off on July 1 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida. The problems delayed the start of Euclid’s six-year mission by more than a month. However, this success was hardly guaranteed a few months ago when the telescope experienced issues during its commissioning phase. “It is unbelievable how well Euclid meets its specifications!” “The images exceed expectations,” said Euclid NL national project manager Edwin Valentijn of the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, in an interview with NSF. These targets were chosen to demonstrate the full potential of Euclid’s two instruments, a visible-wavelength camera called the VISible instrument (VIS) and a near-infrared camera/spectrometer called Near-Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer (NISP). The images reveal five targets at different distances, with the furthest, the Perseus Cluster of galaxies, being released first, followed by spiral galaxy IC 342, irregular galaxy NGC 6822, globular cluster NGC 6397, and finally the Horsehead Nebula. 7, scientists, engineers, and agency officials unveiled the telescope’s first five images. These hefty names do not lend themselves to easy memorization, but they do actually contain valuable information: they are coordinates in the right ascension and declination system used widely by astronomers to locate astronomical objects.The European Space Agency (ESA) has released the first full-color images from Euclid, the agency’s latest space telescope designed to study the nature and distribution of dark matter and dark energy in the universe. The rightmost galaxy, meanwhile, is known as 2MASX J21080362-3313196. The wonderful quality of this image also reveals several further galaxies, not associated with this system but fortuitously positioned in such a way that they appear to be forming a line that approaches the leftmost (in this image) component of Arp-Madore 2105-332, which is known individually as 2MASX J21080752-3314337. Like other recent Hubble Pictures of the Week, this system belongs to the Arp-Madore catalog of peculiar galaxies. This image features an interacting galaxy system known as Arp-Madore 2105-332, which lies about 200 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Microscopium. ShatzĪrp-Madore 2105-332, 200 million light-years away, comprises peculiar, emission-line galaxies active in star formation, as revealed by Hubble. It’s featured in the Hubble Picture of the Week, with galaxies named using astronomical coordinates. It is notable for its emission-line galaxies, indicating vibrant star formation. This Hubble Space Telescope image captures Arp-Madore 2105-332, a peculiar galaxy system in the Microscopium constellation.
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