Check out stunning new images from the Euclid Space Telescope.

It won’t be until March 2025 that the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Euclid Space Telescope will show the extent of its talents, releasing its first trove of data sets such as 3D sky maps. And perhaps we should start questioning our view of the Universe, the main components of which this distant observatory is studying – the mysterious dark matter and dark energy?

In any case, scientists working on the satellite were eager to share the first achievements of their toy. When the first scientific publications from its instruments come out this Thursday, they will reveal five new images, five new windows into the universe.

Star nursery Messier 78

This nebula was discovered in 1780. According to ESA, this is the first time we have this level of detail on this object. “We see three dimensions and how the cloud formed,” marvels Jean-Charles Couillandre, an astrophysicist at the Atomic Energy Commission (CEA).

The very bright nursery at the center is shrouded in a curtain of interstellar dust (red tones) that the infrared Euclidean instrument can penetrate. The blue light shows hydrogen excited during star formation. Young stars often eject planets that eventually escape into interstellar space. Some scientists want to be able to use Euclid’s data to establish a connection between these wandering planets and the stars of their origin.

Galaxy cluster Abell 2390

Euclid’s goal is to map about a third of the universe in a six-year mission. Each sky field is mapped for an hour and contains approximately 50,000 galaxies.

The image shown here is a detail of one of these sky fields. It shows a very massive cluster of galaxies. Astrophysicists claim that they are connected by a thread of dark matter, invisible matter, of course, but whose presence is revealed by a cluster of galaxies. The milky cloud in the center is what we call “intra-cluster light.” In fact, these are stars that galaxies have torn apart from each other.

Galaxy cluster Abell 2764.

This cluster is located about a billion light years away, in the constellation Phoenix. But Euclid’s powers are such that we can see very ancient galaxies in the background, dating back 700 million years after the Big Bang.

“This image is my favorite,” admits Jean-Charles Cuillandre, who himself processed Euclid data to produce this rendering. “We see galaxies that are interacting with each other and are slightly distorted. I haven’t found a single normal one! They have evolved over billions of years. They retain a trace of interaction for a very long time, even if they move away,” the researcher clarifies.

Dorade Group

Compared to clusters such as Abell 2390 and Abell 2764, galaxy groups are more modest in size and include only two or three large galaxies and smaller ones. This image shows how this proximity deforms each of them under the influence of gravity.

This is especially noticeable in the small one located at the bottom left and surrounded by a halo of light. “I have never seen a galaxy like this. It’s as if we extracted a lot of stars and only the skeleton remained,” explains Jean-Charles Couillandre.

Spiral galaxy NGC 6744.

There is the same galaxy on this field, but what beauty! Scientists investigating his case are studying how his spiral arms develop over time. We can see many small blue dots – areas where stars are forming. This image especially shows off the high resolution of Euclidean, which manages to discern the light of numerous stars in NGC 6744.