Europe's Euclid space telescope set for launch to explore 'dark universe'
The Hindu
A SpaceX rocket in Florida stood poised for launch on Saturday carrying the euclid space telescope built to shed light on mysterious cosmic phenomena known as dark energy and dark matter, unseen forces scientists say account for 95% of the known universe.
A SpaceX rocket in Florida stood poised for launch on Saturday carrying an orbital telescope built to shed light on 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, a European Space Agency (ESA) instrument named for the ancient Greek mathematician called the "father of geometry," was bundled inside the cargo bay of a Falcon 9 rocket set for blast-off around 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
New insights from the $1.4 billion mission, designed to last at least six years, are expected to transform astrophysics and perhaps understanding of the very nature of gravity itself.
If all goes as planned, Euclid will be released after a short ride to space 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.
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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.