The Euclid space telescope has revealed the first section of what is to be the largest 3D map of the universe ever made.

 The craft – orbiting one million miles from Earth – has captured a key piece of the cosmic map, containing some 14 million galaxies and tens of millions of stars in our own Milky Way.

This first chunk of the map is a huge mosaic of 208 gigapixels, though accounts for just 1% of the full map that Euclid will produce during its six-year mission which will see the telescope observe billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light-years away.

Captured in the mosaic are dim clouds made of a mix of gas and dust ‘galactic cirrus’, floating in between the stars of our own galaxy, appearing light blue against the dark background of space, which may hold answers to some of nature’s longest kept secrets.

Among the researchers leading the Euclid space telescope project are scientists from the University of Edinburgh’s School of Physics and Astronomy, alongside a consortium of more than 2,000 scientists from 16 countries, working under the banner of the European Space Agency.

The researchers will use data gathered by the mission, including the new images of galactic cirrus, to shed light on two of the biggest mysteries in the universe, dark matter and dark energy.

As part of solving this puzzle, scientists at Edinburgh University will decode data relating to so-called gravitational lensing, a phenomenon which occurs when a galaxy causes the path of light to bend around it, producing tiny changes in the images of galaxies that can be used to map the distribution of dark matter in space.

As well as taking a key role in unravelling the mysteries of the universe, Edinburgh also hosts Euclid’s UK Science Data Centre, which is processing the huge amounts of data generated throughout the mission for scientists to analyse worldwide. 

“This map of a large chunk of the sky is amazing, and shows Euclid’s unique capacity to make high-resolution images of the Universe over such large areas,” said Professor Andy Taylor, of the School of Physics and Astronomy.

“This is essential for Euclid’s mission to understand dark matter and dark energy, but also provides astronomy, and the public, with an unprecedented clear view of the universe.”

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Edinburgh astronomers played a key role in preparing the satellite, including the development of a UK-built optical imager, one of the largest cameras sent into space and capable of measuring gravitational lensing distortions.

“This is a very exciting time for astronomy, and cosmology in particular,” said Taylor.

“Euclid is designed to answer some of the biggest questions we have about the universe. It has been a lot of hard work by many scientists to get here, but the results could change how we understand nature.”