A European-built orbital satellite was launched to space on Saturday from Florida on a mission to shed new light on the mysterious cosmic phenomena known as dark energy and dark matter, unseen forces scientists say account for 95% of the known universe.
The telescope dubbed Euclid, named for the ancient Greek mathematician called the "father of geometry," was carried aloft in the cargo bay of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that blasted off around 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
A livestream of the liftoff was shown on NASA TV.
New insights from the $1.4 billion European Space Agency (ESA) mission, designed to last at least six years, are expected to transform astrophysics and perhaps understanding of the very nature of gravity itself.
Following a short flight to space, Euclid was to be released from the Falcon for a month-long voyage to its destination in solar orbit nearly 1 million miles (1.6 million km) from Earth - a position of gravitational stability between the Earth and sun called the Lagrange Point Two, or L2.
From there, Euclid is designed to explore the evolution of what astrophysicists refer to as the "dark universe," using a wide-angle telescope to survey galaxies as far away as 10 billion light years from Earth across an immense expanse of the sky beyond our own Milky Way galaxy.
The 2-ton spacecraft is also equipped with instruments designed to measure the intensity and spectrums of infrared light from those galaxies in a way that will precisely determine their distances.
The mission focuses on two foundational components of the dark universe. One is dark matter, the invisible but theoretically influential cosmic scaffolding thought to give shape and texture to the cosmos. The other is dark energy, an equally enigmatic force believed to explain why expansion of the universe, as scientists learned in the 1990s, has long been accelerating.
The possibilities of the mission are reflected by the enormity of Euclid's inquiry. Scientists estimate dark energy and dark matter together make up 95% of the cosmos, while ordinary matter that we can see accounts for just 5%.
EUROPEAN-LED MISSION
Euclid was designed and built entirely by ESA, with the U.S. space agency, NASA, supplying photo detectors for its near-infrared instrument. The Euclid Consortium overall comprises more than 2,000 scientists from 13 European nations, the U.S., Canada and Japan.
A decade in the making, the mission originally was to have flown to space by way of a Russian Soyuz rocket. But launch plans were switched to SpaceX, the California-based venture of Elon Musk, after war erupted in Ukraine, and because no slot was immediately available from Europe's Arianne rocket program.
While the James Webb Space Telescope launched by NASA late last year allows astronomers to zero in on particular objects from the early universe with unprecedented clarity, Euclid is intended to expose the hidden fabric and mechanics of the cosmos by meticulously charting an enormous swath of the observable universe in 3-D, more than 1 billion galaxies in all.
Dark matter and dark energy cannot be detected directly, but their properties "are encoded in the shapes and positions of the galaxies," said astrophysicist Jason Rhodes, lead scientist for Euclid at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles.
"Measuring the shapes and positions of galaxies allows us to infer the properties of dark matter and dark energy," Rhodes said on Friday.
The data will be collected as Euclid maps the last 10 billion years of cosmic history across a third of the sky, gazing outward, and thus back in time, to an era of the universe astronomers call "cosmic noon," when most stars were forming.
Observing subtle but distinct changes in the shapes and positions of galaxies over vast spans of time and space will reveal fine variations in cosmic acceleration, indirectly exposing the forces of dark energy, scientists say.
Euclid also will help reveal the nature of dark matter by measuring an effect called gravitational lensing, which produces faint distortions in galaxies' visible shapes and is attributed to the presence of unseen material warping the fabric of space around it.
Through insights into dark energy and matter, scientists hope to better grasp the formation and distribution of galaxies across the so-called cosmic web of the universe.
Beyond Euclid's primary objectives, it will provide "a gold mine for all fields of astronomy for several decades," said Yannick Mellier, Euclid Consortium lead and astronomer at the Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris.
Reuters
Mon Jul 03 2023
An artist's concept shows the Euclid space telescope, built by the European Space Agency (ESA) that is set to be launched by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, in operation. - EA/via REUTERS
KPT ucap tahniah kejayaan kontinjen negara di AUG 2024
KPT merakamkan ucapan tahniah kepada kontinjen negara yang berjaya melepasi sasaran 35 pingat emas dan menduduki tempat ketiga negara terbaik pada kejohanan Sukan Universiti ASEAN (AUG) 2024.
Demam denggi landa negeri selatan India Karnataka, Delhi pula catat 240 kes
Demam denggi melanda beberapa bahagian di negeri selatan India, Karnataka, dengan hampir tujuh orang disyaki meninggal dunia akibat penyakit itu dan lebih 7,000 kes direkodkan.
Skuasy: Aifa-Aira juara beregu wanita Asia 2024
Gandingan adik beradik, Aifa Azman-Aira Azman menepati ramalan apabila bergelar juara beregu wanita Kejohanan Skuasy Beregu Asia 2024.
Program MADANI Rakyat Zon Timur catat jumlah pengunjung tertinggi
Program MADANI Rakyat (PMR) 2024 Zon Timur di Dataran Sayangi Kuantan melabuhkan tirai hari ini dengan mencatatkan jumlah pengunjung tertinggi dalam tiga siri penganjurannya iaitu jumlah pengunjung me
AWANI 7:45 [07/07/2024] - Peringatan Agong | Usah korban jati diri demi kuasa | Isu buli siber jadi tumpuan | Nasib berbeza dua 'gergasi' bola sepak
#AWANI745 malam ini bersama Syaff Shukri;
1. Agong ingatkan, jangan jadikan media sosial tempat buka aib
2. Jangan korban jati diri untuk kuasa dan populariti, pesan Sultan Kedah
3. Belum ada jaminan BN dan PH kerjasama hadapi PRU16
4. England gembira, Brazil berduka, nasib berbeza dua gergasi bola sepak
1. Agong ingatkan, jangan jadikan media sosial tempat buka aib
2. Jangan korban jati diri untuk kuasa dan populariti, pesan Sultan Kedah
3. Belum ada jaminan BN dan PH kerjasama hadapi PRU16
4. England gembira, Brazil berduka, nasib berbeza dua gergasi bola sepak
1,400 veteran ATM disasar sertai Program Desa MADANI tahun ini
Kementerian Pertahanan menyasarkan 1,400 veteran Angkatan Tentera Malaysia (ATM) menyertai Program Veteran Desa Madani (VDM) seluruh negara tahun ini.
Kekalahan di Sungai Bakap bukan penamat hadapi PRK seterusnya - Ahmad Zahid
Kekalahan calon Pakatan Harapan (PH) pada Pilihan Raya Kecil (PRK) Dewan Undangan Negeri (DUN) Sungai Bakap di Pulau Pinang semalam bukanlah penamat kepada gabungan parti dalam Kerajaan Perpaduan khus
Pentas jual anugerahkan pakej media bernilai RM55,600
Jelajah JIWA SME 2024 melabuhkan tirai untuk siri pertama di Johor Bahru. Pemyampai Astro AWANI, Irfan Faruqi membawakan perinciannya.
Perpaduan kaum, agama asas penting mesti dipelihara - Agong
Sultan Ibrahim bertitah dalam konteks Malaysia, perpaduan kaum dan agama yang kukuh adalah asas penting yang mesti dipelihara.
John Cena umum bakal bersara dari gelanggang WWE
John Cena, hari ini mengejutkan peminat dengan mengumumkan akan bersara daripada gelanggang gusti pada tahun hadapan.