After fears that Europe's space scope was toast, its first images look mighty fine
- Reference: 1690972151
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/08/02/euclid_telescope_test_images/
- Source link:
Launched [1]a month ago , Euclid will snap billions of galaxies to help astronomers piece together the largest three-dimensional map of the universe. The telescope hasn't yet started its official observations – studying the impacts of dark matter and dark energy – but the European Space Agency has successfully tested the spacecraft's instruments.
The latest images, captured by its VISible instrument (VIS) and Near-Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer (NISP), show the shapes of faraway galaxies covering a small region of the sky. They prove that Euclid is working well, according to Carole Mundell, ESA's director of science.
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"Our teams have worked tirelessly since the launch of Euclid on July 1 and these first engineering images give a tantalising glimpse of the remarkable data we can expect from Euclid," she [3]declared in a statement.
Getting over the dazzle problem
The space agency wasn't always so confident about the observatory's abilities – especially after it found an odd light pattern affecting some of its images.
The issue was later found to be from sunlight streaming into the spacecraft through a tiny gap. The issue only appeared when Euclid was at specific angles to the Sun and scientists realized they could snap clear images by avoiding orienting the telescope in certain directions that allowed sunlight to shine through its cracks.
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"After more than 11 years of designing and developing Euclid, it's exhilarating and enormously emotional to see these first images," enthused Euclid project manager Giuseppe Racca.
"It's even more incredible when we think that we see just a few galaxies here, produced with minimum system tuning. The fully calibrated Euclid will ultimately observe billions of galaxies to create the biggest ever 3D map of the sky."
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Euclid's VIS instrument snaps detailed images of distant galaxies at visible wavelengths to capture their individual shapes. Astronomers can study each object more carefully by analyzing infrared data from its NISP device, which splits light from each galaxy and star to calculate its distance from Earth.
Astroboffins using the scope will then use this information to build a 3D map of the universe dating back to ten billion years and covering over a third of the sky. Scientists hope that effort will reveal secrets of how dark matter and dark energy work. Little is known about these two mysterious components, but scientists estimate that they make up 95 percent of the universe and drive its expansion.
[7]Europe's Euclid telescope launches to figure out dark energy, the universe, and everything
[8]Supernova peekaboo could provide clues to our universe's age
[9]Balloon-borne telescope returns first photos in search for dark matter
"We don't know what dark energy is," Mike Seiffert, a project scientist working at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who contributed to the Euclid mission, [10]previously told The Register .
"We know so little about it because its effect on Earth – or the Solar System, or of our own galaxy – is extremely small. It is only by looking at the largest scales in the universe that we can detect it at all."
Scientists will examine the distribution of matter in the universe and how it behaves across different distances. Across shorter distances, gravity is attractive and brings matter together – but at longer distances, dark energy takes over and drives matter further apart.
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Yannick Mellier, [12]an astronomer at the Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris – part of the Euclid Consortium backing the project – declared "The outstanding first images obtained using Euclid's visible and near-infrared instruments open a new era to observational cosmology and statistical astronomy. They mark the beginning of the quest for the very nature of dark energy, to be undertaken by the Euclid Consortium." ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/01/euclid_dark_energy_telescope_launch/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZMp9pElE8pEjAHplsiAg@gAAA48&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Euclid/Euclid_test_images_tease_of_riches_to_come
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZMp9pElE8pEjAHplsiAg@gAAA48&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZMp9pElE8pEjAHplsiAg@gAAA48&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZMp9pElE8pEjAHplsiAg@gAAA48&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/01/euclid_dark_energy_telescope_launch/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/16/universe_age/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/25/balloonborne_telescope_returns_first_photos/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/01/euclid_dark_energy_telescope_launch/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZMp9pElE8pEjAHplsiAg@gAAA48&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.euclid-ec.org/
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Sunlight streaming into the spacecraft through a tiny gap.
ESA remembered to send the heavy wooden tripod, got everything nicely focussed on the ground-glass screen and removed the dark slide, but the heavy black cloth had failed to unfurl properly.
Luckily the older galaxies have stopped the young ones in the front row from fidgeting so they can take the shot again.
If we could just have the First XV cluster together now, very nice: hold it, hold it...
Re: Sunlight streaming into the spacecraft through a tiny gap.
There's always one galaxy though that tries to ran around behind all the others so it can appear twice!
(ground glass and dark slide photographer here!)
Re: Sunlight streaming into the spacecraft through a tiny gap.
"Einstein, SIT DOWN! Yes, a ring, very pretty, but you're going to be all smeared out."
Typical!
After 11 years of, I'm sure, very extensive design reviews, the final design has a crack in it!
Of all the design malfunctions that you do not want in a telescope a light leak is very high on the list.
Be interesting to know if it is a crack something broken, or a gap as in things not fitting correctly where the light gets in
The gaffer tape didn't stick properly.
Spot the gap!
ESA publishes some really good high resolution photographs of the STM (Structural and Thermal Model) and in some of them it is possible to see there is a platform that the tubular sunscreen connects to, then a gap, then below it the instruments (this organisation can be seen in some sketch/CAD diagrams of the instruments found elsewhere).
The gap between instruments and platform appears to be covered with flaps of gold foil which in some photographs are unclipped and others partially clipped. It looks likely that when the telescope is oriented such that the solar panels aren't aimed perpendicular to the sun, light can pass the edge of panels and is supposed to be reflected away by the tube and these foil flaps. It is possible that one or more foil flaps isn't correctly overlapping - that would explain why light pollution only occurs at specific angles to the sun.
See this and its list of "Related" images:
https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2019/09/Structural_and_thermal_model_of_the_Euclid_satellite12
Euclid
There is a very recent video about it on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SOLoPxlXJA
Euclid Just Opened Its Eyes, and This Is What It Saw
(note: the words terrifying or shocking is not in the title - a good sign)
I still have a fiver which says that dark matter and dark energy will turn out to be modern physics' epicycles.
"Hey, our models don't work, but we don't need to fix them. All we need to do is invent a new sort of matter which forms most of the mass of the universe but doesn't affect anything except the things our models don't predict correctly."
Only a fiver, but it stinks of defensive bodge.
'Here be dragons'
In fairness, my understanding is that Dark Matter and Dark Energy are merely theoretical placeholders for effects that we don't yet understand, which makes me wince whenever I hear about them being referred to as something that we expect to physically find.
It's not a given that Dark Matter or Dark Energy actually exists in the way that we think of energy and matter. Certainly, we might find that the current model is wrong and what we think of as energy and mass in this case just don't exist. The fact that we haven't found *anything* that resemble either yet leads me to suspect that we never will and we are concentrating our efforts in the wrong direction. Mind you, if we can confirm their non-existence, that is still progress.
Calling it "dark" is a very honest way to express we don't know.
"Here's looking at Euclid"
Lovely stuff, well done :)