The Euclidean Space Telescope’s target launch date is July 1, 2023 (not before 6:11 PM Finnish time), with a backup launch date of July 2, 2023. In six years, Euclid will accomplish a task that would take more than a century for older telescopes like the Hubble or Webb. The main goal is to solve the dark energy problem, so why did the expansion of the universe start to accelerate?

A map that reveals the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy

Euclid’s purpose is to help us understand two of the most mysterious yet important phenomena in the universe; dark matter and dark energy.

“The gravitational pull of dark matter and dark energy affects the motion of galaxies and the expansion of the universe. Although we can’t see any of them directly, they make up about 95% of the universe,” says Professor Hannu Kurki-Suonio from the university. Helsinki.

Euclid will create a three-dimensional map of the universe with billions of galaxies. The map will cover more than a third of space up to 10 billion light-years away. The further away the observed galaxy is, the farther back we can see – up to 10 billion years ago.

The portion of space to be mapped was chosen because it is where the most distant galaxies can be seen most clearly, avoiding the plane of the Milky Way and our own solar system. Euclid also measures the effect of gravitational lensing; How dark matter’s gravity bends the path of light, distorting the way we see distant galaxies. This will allow us to map the distribution of dark matter.

The three-dimensional map created by Euclid will help us examine how the universe expanded and how large-scale structures such as galaxies developed throughout cosmic history. This depends on the properties of dark matter and dark energy.

Euclid will be launched 1.5 million kilometers from Earth on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, where it will be able to observe unhindered. Euclid has a 1.2-metre telescope and two instruments: one for sharp images in visible light and the other for spectrum and infrared images.

Both instruments in Euclid contain a large camera. Visible images contain more than 600 million pixels and infrared images contain more than 60 million pixels. Euclid will capture more than an hour of footage from one domain and then return it to another domain. Euclidean differs from previous space telescopes in that it can cover a much larger portion of space at once – more than a single image can hide.

More than 300 research institutes and 2,000 researchers from 21 countries participate in Euclid. The total cost of the project is over 1 billion euros. Data from the Euclidean observations will be analyzed in nine separate Euclidean science data centers, one of which is located in Finland.

Finnish scientists collaborated in the development of computational methods for Euclid, the creation of simulated data, and the development of data quality assurance methods. Finnish members also take a strong position in combining observations from Earth with Euclid’s data. In addition to the data collected by the space telescope, we also need a huge amount of data collected from Earth to determine distances to galaxies.

“To collect all this data, we need a long-term collaboration between observatories and data centers around the world, but when complete, it will also provide scientists with the best material for studying the structure of the universe,” the university said. Lecturer Aku Venhola from the University of Oulu.

“Data-intensive computing is a rapidly growing field of science. Finland’s Euclidean Science Data Center is a prime example of this,” says Janne Ignatius, CSC Director of the Science IT Center.

“Developing efficient data analysis methods creates interdisciplinary challenges between cosmology and IT,” adds Maarit Korpi-Lag, Associate Professor at Aalto University.

Finnish researchers have developed methods specifically for calculating statistical indicators such as correlation functions to explain the structure of the universe. When the Finnish computing center becomes available, it will be responsible for processing 5% of the data from Euclid. Euclid will begin collecting measurements three months after launch. The first measurement period will last one year, after which 14 months are reserved for analysis. The first results of the Euclid project are expected to be received by the end of 2025.