‘Dark universe detective’ telescope releases first data

PARIS: Europe’s Euclid space telescope, which is on a mission to shed light on the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy, released its first data Wednesday with a little help from volunteers and artificial intelligence.

The telescope launched in 2023, aiming to chart one third of the sky -- encompassing 1.5 billion galaxies -- to create what has been billed as humanity’s most accurate 3D map of the universe.

Euclid, which is now hovering 1.5 million kilometres (932,0000 miles) from Earth, has previously released images of a range of strange galaxies, colourful nebulas and shining stars.

But the first release of astronomical data is “a new milestone for our dark universe detective,” the European Space Agency’s science director Carole Mundell told a press conference.

The huge amount of data -- which was accompanied by 27 scientific papers -- still only covers less than 0.5 percent of the sky that Euclid will scan over its six-year mission.

Yet the early data already offers hints about the overall structure of the universe known as the “cosmic web,” project scientist Valeria Pettorino said.

Between large empty spaces, there are massive clusters of galaxies connected by filaments of material which make up this web, she explained.

This unimaginably massive structure cannot be explained by visible matte alone, so scientists believe dark matter and dark energy must play a role.

However the new data did not contain any major revelations about dark matter and dark energy. That will have to wait until closer to the end of Euclid’s mission, the scientists said. The Euclid Consortium, which brings together more than 2,000 researchers from Europe, the United States, Canada and Japan, sorted through the new data.

Wednesday’s release contained 35 terabytes of data -- the equivalent of streaming 4K video for 200 days -- yet represented just a week of Euclid’s observation time.