A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the European Space Agency’s Euclid Space Telescope lifts off from Launch Pad 40 at the Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Saturday, July 1, 2023. The Euclid Space Telescope mission aims to explore the evolutionary processes of the dark universe.
John Raus | AP Photo
A European space telescope launched on Saturday aimed at exploring the mysterious and invisible realm known as the dark universe.
SpaceX launched the European Space Agency’s Euclid Observatory 1 million miles (1.5 million kilometers) to its final destination, near the Webb Space Telescope. It will take a month to achieve this and two more months before the ambitious six-year survey begins this fall.
Euclid, named after the ancient Greek mathematician, will search the billions of galaxies covering more than one-third of the sky. By pinpointing the position and shape of galaxies 10 billion light-years away — dating almost as far back as the Big Bang when the universe was created — scientists hope to gain insight into the dark energy and dark matter that make up most of the universe, keeping it expanding.
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Scientists only understand 5% of the universe: stars, planets and us. The rest “remains a mystery, a huge frontier in modern physics, and we hope this mission will really help push that frontier,” ESA science director Carol Mundell said before the launch.
The telescope’s much-anticipated 3D map of the universe will span space and time to explain how the dark universe evolves and why its expansion accelerates.
Euclid will measure dark energy and dark matter with unprecedented precision, said the lead scientist on the $1.5 billion (€1.4 billion) mission.
“It’s not just a space telescope, Euclid. It’s actually a dark energy detector,” Rene Laureis pointed out.
Euclid is 15 feet (4.7 meters) tall and nearly as wide, with a 1.2-meter (4-foot) telescope and two scientific instruments capable of observing the universe in visible and near-infrared light. The huge sunshade is designed to keep sensitive systems at a decent cold temperature.
NASA, which contributed to the Euclid Infrared Probe, also has its own mission to better understand dark energy and dark matter: the Roman Space Telescope will launch in 2027. The U.S.-Europe Webb Telescope could also join the mission, officials said.
Euclid was supposed to launch on a Russian rocket from French Guiana in South America (the main European spaceport). After the invasion of Ukraine last year, the European and Russian space agencies severed ties, and the telescope was flown by SpaceX aboard Cape Canaveral instead. Project manager Giuseppe Racca said waiting for Europe’s next generation Ariane rocket, which has yet to make its first flight, would mean a delay of more than two years.