New Euclid space telescope image of 60 million Milky Way stars could keep astronomers busy for decades
On a grand mission to build a deep-space telescope The largest 3D map of the universe ever Just peek into a heart full of stars galaxy. In new comments shared on Wednesday (June 24) euclid space telescope depicted the center of galaxy In extraordinary detail, showing the crowd of more than 60 million stars at the center of the galaxy.
shiny new image from European Space Agency According to ESA scientists, the (ESA) spacecraft will help astronomers use changes in starlight to confirm newly found exoplanets and measure the masses of those planets as they orbit their parent stars.
This image was taken over 26 cumulative hours in March 2025 with the telescope’s visible-light camera at nine points toward the center of the galaxy, also known as the Galactic Bulge. Each viewpoint captured a patch of sky larger than the full moon. in a statementESA praised Euclid’s performance in challenging conditions.
“Designed to observe billions of distant galaxies, the space telescope’s visible-light camera is sensitive enough to tell individual stars apart in our over-crowded galaxy bulge without even looking at them,” agency officials wrote.
mosaic image will help NASA‘S Nancy Grace Roman Telescope With its upcoming planet-hunting mission underway, the observatory will then launch no later than Aug. 30 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The Roman telescope is one way to discover the New World microlensingThe same technique that can be used to investigate exoplanets in the new Euclid image. Microlensing occurs when one star passes in front of another from the viewpoint of one observer. The gravity of the approaching star briefly bends and enhances the light of the star behind it, allowing potentially undiscovered planets to approach that star.
An image of the Milky Way as seen from Earth, showing two zooms of Euclid’s target area.
(Image credit: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, CFHT, ESA/Gaia/DPAC, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre and E. Bertin (CEA Paris-Saclay))
“During the past 20 years, nearly 300 exoplanets have been discovered using this technique, all with ground-based telescopes and all toward the center of our galaxy,” Jean-Philippe Beaulieuwho initiated the Euclid Galactic Bulge Survey and co-leads the Euclid Consortium’s Exoplanet Working Group, said the ESA statement.
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“This Euclid image includes 51 known planetary systems – and will help study many more,” said Beaulieu, who holds positions at the Paris Institute of Astrophysics and the University of Tasmania in Australia.
An infographic showing how Euclid sees the central bulge of the Milky Way, across the Milky Way. The bottom panels show the diversity of structures in Euclid’s visual field.
(Image credits: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, CFHT, image processing by J.-C. Quillandre and E. Bertin (CEA Paris-Saclay); Milky Way artist impression: ESA/Gaia/DPAC, Stéphane Payne-Wardenaar))
a cosmic time capsule
Euclid’s observation window was too small to discover the microlensing phenomenon, requiring more than 20 days of probing a star to see a planet’s orbit and associated changes in the star’s light. But Euclid’s work allowed astronomers to measure previously known planets. And once the new planets are confirmed by other telescopes, the image will let astronomers look back to confirm the masses of those newly found worlds.
“In 24 hours, Euclid has already captured the stars involved in all future microlensing events that the Roman Space Telescope will detect, but before the stars and planets involved have aligned,” Natalia Rectsinia postdoctoral fellow at the Paris Institute of Astrophysics who led the release of Euclid’s Galactic Bulge Survey data, explained in the statement.
“Whoever detects a microlensing event in the same region, for example with Roman, will be able to use the Euclid data as a time reference from now into the past and see how the stars looked before the overlap,” he said. “Because Euclid could clearly distinguish individual stars, one could measure how fast they move over time, and use that information to confirm the existence of a planet and determine its mass. This would not be possible with data from a single point in time.”
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