The European probe “Euclid” for the study of dark matter and dark energy has been launched into space. The aircraft of the European Space Agency ESA took off on Saturday from the US spaceport Cape Canaveral on board a Falcon 9 rocket from the US company SpaceX, as shown in live images.
With a high-resolution telescope, “Euclid” will take a look into the past of the universe and explore its development over the last ten billion years. Also, aim to create a 3D map where time is the third dimension. In total, data on billions of galaxies is to be collected.
“Euclid” is to fly about 1.5 million kilometers into space. It will take about a month to get there. After a few tests, the mission, which costs around 1.4 billion euros, should really start in October. The probe will initially be in use for six years.
With the help of “Euclid”, researchers want to see the expansion of the universe and understand how individual structures formed. From this they want to draw conclusions about dark matter and dark energy.
Giuseppe Racca, who is responsible for the mission at ESA, assumes that “Euclid” will provide an enormous amount of new information. “I expect that ‘Euclid’ will flood the scientific community with an unprecedented, massive amount of data.”
