Euclid space telescope takes new photos in search for dark matter 2.7 billion light-years away

The Euclid telescope team has released five new images of space, showcasing numerous celestial objects in unprecedented detail. Euclid is called the "dark universe detector" because its main mission is to explore the two most mysterious elements of space: dark energy and dark matter.

Dark energy is the force that causes the acceleration of the expansion of the Universe, dark matter is a form of matter that is actually invisible because it does not interact with light. It is not ordinary matter made up of electrons, protons, and neutrons.

This invisible dark universe poses a big problem for scientists, as it is believed that dark energy makes up about 68% of all the matter in the Universe, while dark matter makes up about 27% - together they make up 95% of the matter in the Universe, and what people see is only 5%. It is expected that Euclid will be able to study these mysterious substances. The new images are part of the early observations of the telescope.

The five new images published by the Euclid team are at least four times clearer than those taken by ground-based telescopes. Covering vast areas of the sky, they also stand out for their unprecedented depth, as Euclid looks far into the distant Universe using a 600 MP camera that observes celestial targets in visible light, as well as a near-infrared range spectrometer.

One of the photos shows Abell 2390, a giant cluster of galaxies similar to the Milky Way and located about 2.7 billion light-years from Earth in the constellation of Pegasus.

The image contains stunning details of 50,000 galaxies and shows the "intracluster light" emanating from stars in Abell 2390. These are stars that have been ripped from their places due to strong gravitational interactions with other galaxies in the cluster. This intracluster light can also help detect the distribution of dark matter.

Of particular interest to scientists studying dark matter are the background arcs and twisted filaments in this image. They represent light from distant galaxies that is gravitationally "lensed" or distorted by dark matter located between the galaxies themselves and Euclid. This distortion of distant galaxies can be seen in the lower part of the image.

The new photo series also includes a view of another galaxy cluster, Abell 2764, located approximately 1 billion light-years from Earth in a dense area of space.

Stars within the Milky Way that are much closer to the telescope are also visible, and because of their relative proximity, they appear incredibly bright. This particular star, V*BP-Phoenicis, is actually so bright in the night sky that it is almost visible to the naked eye.

Other photos from Euclid include, among others, the Dorado group of galaxies located about 62 million light-years away; the NGC 6744 galaxy; Messier 78, the "stellar nursery," located approximately 1300 light-years away in the Orion constellation.