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See the Universe like NEVER before: UK scientists use the Euclid spacecraft to take the largest images of the cosmos ever taken from space - revealing a 'jellyfish' nebula and a clone of the Milky Way
Stunning new photos from the European Space Agency's (ESA's) Euclid probe show the largest images of the cosmos ever taken.
The UK-backed spacecraft, which blasted off from Florida last summer, returns five new snaps from its vantage point about one million miles from Earth.
Among them is a shot of a spiral galaxy 30 million light-years away that looks like our own Milky Way and a beautiful cloud of faraway gas and dust shaped like a jellyfish.
There's also distant 'galaxy clusters' – several galaxies held together by gravity – captured in 'exquisite' detail thanks to the probe's infrared sensors.
This second trove comes six months after Euclid returned its first full-colour images of the cosmos.
The new collection includes a nebula (left) a spiral galaxy that looks like our Milky Way (top right) and galaxy clusters (bottom right)
Since being launched by a SpaceX rocket in July 2023, Euclid has been stationed at L2, the 'second Lagrange point' of space – a position in space between Earth and the sun where objects sent there tend to stay put.
L2 is located 930,000 miles (1.5 million km) directly 'behind' the Earth as viewed from the sun – nearly four times further away from the Earth than the moon ever reaches.
'These are the largest images of the Universe ever taken from space, covering large swathes of the sky in fine detail,' said Mark Cropper, professor of Astrophysics at University College London.
'They demonstrate Euclid’s wide-ranging potential, from discovering new planets to surveying vast clusters of galaxies.'
MESSIER '78
The pick of the bunch is a 'breathtaking' shot of nebula called Messier '78, located about 1,600 light-years away from Earth.
Nebulae are enormous clouds of dust and gas occupying the space between stars, and act as a 'nursery' for new stars.
This 'vibrant' stellar nursery is enveloped in a shroud of interstellar dust, which Euclid was able to peer through using its infrared camera.
'Clumps' of gas and dust are pulled together by gravity to create 'complex filaments' of dark orange and pinky-purple – giving an overall shape similar to a jellyfish.
Messier 78: The colourful image looks like a bizarre species of jellyfish but it's actually a nebula - a huge cloud of gas and dust where stars are born
ESA calls this image 'unprecedented' because it is the first time this young star-forming region has been captured at this width and depth.
NGC 6744
NGC 6744 is a spiral galaxy about 30 million light-years away in the constellation Pavo, also known as the Peacock.
'Exquisite' detail is revealed in the new image of the galaxy, including feather-like lanes of dust emerging as ‘spurs’ from the spiral arms.
Astronomers believe that galaxies have spiral arms because galaxies rotate around a central axis, although the physics behind the structure of spiral galaxies is something that’s still not fully understood even after decades of study.
What they do know is that the spiral structure is important in galaxies, because the arms move and compress gas to foster star formation (most of which occurs along these arms).
NGC 6744 has been described as a lookalike for our own Milky Way galaxy because they are both spiral and have similarities as seen in spacecraft images.
But NGC 6744 is twice as big as our galaxy – 175,000 light-years across compared to the Milky Way's 100,000 light years.
NGC 6744: A spiral galaxy about 30 million light-years away in the constellation Pavo, also known as the Peacock
Euclid is stationed at L2, the 'second Lagrange point' of space - a position in space between Earth and the sun where objects sent there tend to stay put
ABELL 2390
Abell 2390 is a galaxy cluster – a giant conglomeration of many galaxies – located 2.7 billion light-years from Earth.
Galaxy clusters are the largest objects in the universe that are held together by their own gravity.
They contain hundreds or thousands of galaxies, lots of hot plasma, and a large amount of dark matter – invisible mass that only interacts with regular matter through gravity and doesn't emit, absorb or reflect light.
Galaxy clusters like Abell 2390 are large repositories of dark matter, making them ideal astrophysical laboratories for studying its properties.
In this single image, more than 50,000 galaxies can be viewed, each one appearing as a single bright blob, like fireflies in the night's sky.
Abell 2390: A galaxy cluster (a giant conglomeration of many galaxies like the Milky Way). More than 50 000 galaxies are seen here
ABELL 2764
Another galaxy cluster called Abell 2764 is seen in the top right of this fourth snap, discernable by an odd assortment of round and oblong blobs.
ESA describes Abell 2764 as a very dense region of space containing hundreds of galaxies orbiting within a halo of dark matter – matter that's completely invisible.
Also seen in this new image is a bright foreground star that lies within our own galaxy, called V*BP-Phoenicis.
In the southern hemisphere, the star is nearly bright enough to be seen by the human eye, but Euclid renders it bright and golden.
Abell 2764: Viewable in the top right of this image. Also note V*BP-Phoenicis (lower left), a star within our galaxy and in the southern hemisphere that’s nearly bright enough to be seen by the human eye
DORADO GROUP
Lastly, the Dorado Group is another cluster of galaxies, collectively spanning more than 1,000 light years in the far southern sky.
As this image shows, Dorado's assortment of galaxies are of many shapes and sizes, from spirals to flat and disk-shaped, some very bright and others more faint.
As Dorado is a lot younger than other clusters, several of its constituent galaxies are still forming stars and remain in the stage of interacting with one another, while others show signs of having merged relatively recently.
Dorado Group; A loose group comprising an estimated 70 galaxies and located some 62 million light-years away
Amazingly, Euclid captured this new images in just a single day, in both visible light and infrared light.
They are at least four times sharper than those we can take from ground-based telescopes, according to experts.
'In these spectacular images we can see galaxies that were previously invisible, because the most distant galaxies can only be discovered using the longer near-infrared wavelengths seen by Euclid,' said Dr Rebecca Bowler, physicists at the University of Manchester.
Researchers have described the shots in a series of 10 scientific papers published today, but yet more incredible observations will be revealed in the years to come.
Photo just days prior to July 1 launch shows Euclid being secured on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands ready to launch the Euclid satellite for the European Space Agency at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, July 1, 2023
The probe's objective is to better understand two mysterious components that make up 95 per cent of the universe – dark matter and dark energy.
Dark matter, which unlike normal matter does not reflect or emit light, binds together galaxies creating the environment for stars, planets and life.
Meanwhile, dark energy is the mysterious phenomenon which is pushing galaxies away from each other and causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate.
Experts hope Euclid will answer two key questions – what the fundamental physical laws of the universe are, and how the universe originated and what it is made of.
The UK has contributed £37 million towards the £850 million mission, with scientists playing key roles in designing and building the probe and leading on one of the two scientific instruments on board.