Anyone who is fond of mystery has in space exploration an immense field full of things that we still do not know.
In fact, 95% of the universe is made up of two elements that are an enigma. In 2013, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking referred to these two elements with these words: "The missing link in cosmology is the nature of dark matter and dark energy." Regarding this missing link in cosmology, the European Space Agency (ESA) points out: "95% of the Universe appears to be made up of unknown 'dark' matter and energy. Dark matter and energy affect the motion and distribution of visible sources but do not emit, reflect or absorb any light. And scientists do not know what these dark entities actually are."
On July 1, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the ESA Euclid spacecraft from Cape Canaveral, Florida. This spacecraft's mission is to investigate dark matter and dark energy. The planned duration of this mission is 6 years. The name of the ship refers to the Greek mathematician Euclid, considered the father of Geometry. The ship is equipped with a wide-angle space telescope that records images of the visible spectrum on a 600-megapixel camera.
The Euclid Telescope "will create the largest, most accurate 3D map of the Universe across space and time by observing billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light-years, across more than a third of the sky", ESA points out. In addition to capturing very sharp images, the spacecraft is also equipped with a NISP near-infrared spectrometer and photometer, which will provide images and spectroscopic data "over the largest infrared field of view from space."
Using these instruments, "Euclid will explore how the Universe has expanded and how and how large-scale structure is distributed across space and time, revealing more about the role of gravity and the nature of dark energy and dark matter." About this fascinating mission, the ESA has today published a hypnotic video that you can see below (be careful if you have photosensitive epilepsy, the video has flashing images):
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Photos: European Space Agency.
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