European Space Agency launches 'Euclid Space Telescope' mission to study dark energy and dark matter
The European Space Agency launched the €1.4 billion Euclid Space Telescope on July 1, 2023, to search and study dark energy and dark matter. This telescope has been launched for six years to chart the largest-ever map of the universe.
SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station towards its final destination, the European Space Agency's (ESA) Euclid Observatory, 1.5 million km away, where the James Webb Space Telescope is in orbit.
The James Webb Space Telescope is located at Lagrange Point Two, or L2, which is the position of gravitational stability between the Earth and the Sun.
NASA, too, is coming up with its own mission, the 'Roman Space Telescope', which will launch in 2027, to better understand dark energy and dark matter.
Scientists estimate that dark energy and dark matter together make up 95% of the universe, while the normal matter we can see makes up only 5%.
'Euclid Space Telescope
It is named after the ancient Greek mathematician known as the "Father of Geometry". By pinpointing the location and size of galaxies up to 10 billion light-years away – roughly as far back as the Big Bang that created the universe, scientists hope to glean information about the dark energy and dark matter that make up the majority of the universe.
Euclid – which is 4.7 meters tall and almost as wide, carries a 1.2-meter telescope and two scientific instruments capable of observing the universe in both visible light and near-infrared.
The telescope's highly anticipated 3D map of the universe will span both space and time to explain how the dark universe evolved and why its expansion is accelerating. .
