Five colour photos of the cosmos with a resolution that is close to incredible. These are the first images that came from the Euclid space telescope, built and managed by the European Space Agency (ESA) with the contribution of NASA and the collaboration of the Italian Space Agency (ASI), the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), and INFN, in addition to numerous Italian universities. The images show that the telescope is ready to create the most extensive 3D map of the universe ever seen and to discover some of its hidden secrets. In fact, never before has a telescope, whether space or terrestrial, been able to create such clear astronomical images over such a wide area of sky and to see so far into the distant universe. The images immortalise several celestial bodies: from the iconic Horsehead Nebula, just 1,500 light years away from Earth, passing through a star cluster and two galaxies, to the gigantic Perseus Cluster of galaxies, at 240 million light years from us. While depicting relatively close objects in the universe, these images illustrate all the potential of Euclid, which was launched last July 1 and is now in orbit at 1.5 million kilometres from us around the L2 equilibrium point between Sun, Earth, and Moon.
- COMUNICATI INFN ARCHIVIO // ARCHIVE
- COMUNICATI STAMPA 2023