Euclid space telescope captures tens of thousands of glittering galaxies

Stunning new images from the Euclid space telescope show a dazzling array of starry sights, released to celebrate the first science published from the telescope’s early release observations.

The mission from the European Space Agency, launched last year, aims to elucidate the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy — forces that comprise most of the known universe but that are largely unknown since they are so difficult to study. Scientists know that dark matter must exist because they can observe its gravitational effects, for example, but they can’t observe it directly because it doesn’t interact with light.

The solution is an extremely sensitive instrument like Euclid, which can observe distant galaxies to see dark matter’s effects...

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