Euclid "Dark Universe" Telescope

The huge mosaic released by ESA’s Euclid space telescope on October 15, 2024, accounts for 1% of the wide survey that Euclid will capture over six years. The location and actual size of the mosaic on the Southern Sky is shown in yellow. This all-sky view is an overlay of ESA Gaia’s star map from its second data release in 2018 and ESA Planck’s dust map from 2014. Credit: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA; ESA/Gaia/DPAC; ESA/Planck Collaboration

A new 208-gigapixel cosmic map, capturing 132 square degrees of the Southern Sky, was unveiled, marking the start of a six-year journey by the Euclid mission to create the largest 3D cosmic map, revealing the universe in unprecedented detail.

The first section of Euclid’s map, a massive 208-gigapixel mosaic, was unveiled at the International Astronautical Congress in Milan, Italy, by ESA’s Director General Josef Aschbacher and Director of Science Carole Mundell.

This mosaic is composed of 260 observations taken between March 25 and April 8, 2024. In just two weeks, Euclid managed to capture 132 square degrees of the Southern Sky with incredible clarity—an area over 500 times larger than the full Moon.               READ MORE...

NASA Launces Time Machine

The James Webb Space Telescope, also commonly called Webb, is the most significant advancement in human endeavor toward unraveling the mystery of the cosmos. This infrared observatory started in space with the support of NASA, ESA, and CSA; it can give a new perception of the evolution of the cosmos in the tendency to provide a glimpse of the Big Bang and its effect.

Webb is more than just a telescope – it is humanity’s most potent eye in the sky – providing the ability to observe the universe billions of years back and, hopefully, unlock the key to the cosmos’ evolution and provide answers to some of the most fundamental questions asked by humanity.

A mirror like no other: how Webb’s unprecedented design changes our understanding of the cosmos
Webb’s instrument, called the Mid-Infrared Instrument or MIRI, is designed to collect energy even from behind dust clouds and reveal the objects behind them. It has a mirror that is almost three times the size of the first space telescope, the Hubble, and is made of 18 hexagonal segments, collecting much more light than the earlier telescope, hence capturing the faint lights from the young universe.               READ MORE...

Galaxies in the Universe

An image from the Hubble Space Telescope showing hundreds of faraway galaxies. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, J. Diego (Instituto de Física de Cantabria, Spain), J. D’Silva (U. Western Australia), A. Koekemoer (STScI), J. Summers & R. Windhorst (ASU), and H. Yan (U. Missouri))



The Milky Way is just a speck in a universe filled with an untold number of galaxies. But if we had to take an educated guess, how many galaxies are in the universe?


That sounds like a simple question, but it's anything but. The first problem is that even with our most powerful telescopes, we can see only a tiny fraction of the universe.


"The observable universe is only that part of the universe from which the light has had time to reach us," astrophysicist Kai Noeske, now outreach officer at the European Space Agency, told Live Science.     
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A Spectacular Universe

Just 12 million light-years away, the galaxies Messier 81 and 82 offer a nearby preview of the Milky Way-Andromeda merger.

Right in our cosmic backyard, a preview of the Milky Way’s future unfolds.
The galaxy Messier 81, also known as Bode’s Galaxy, is one of the brightest and closest galaxies to Earth not found in our Local Group. By connectng the lower-left corner of the Big Dipper’s cup to the upper-right corner and then traveling that same distance in the same direction, you can find M81 and the other major galaxies of its group all clustered together. (Credit: E. Siegel/Stellarium)

Just outside the Big Dipper’s “cup,” Bode’s Galaxy, Messier 81, lingers.
This optical image of Bode’s Galaxy, M81, comes courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope. The spiral arms are littered with hot, young, blue stars, while large extent of the arms indicates a gravitational interaction with one or more nearby neighbors. A wider-field and multiwavelength view supports that. (Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA))

12 million light-years away, it’s a naked eye object for those with acute vision and exceptionally dark skies.
The two largest, brightest galaxies in the M81 Group, M81 (right) and M82 (left), are shown in the same frame in these 2013 and 2014 photos. In 2014, M82 experienced a supernova, visible in the 2014 (blue) image just above the galactic center. (Credit: Simon in the Lakes)

The largest galaxy in the M81 group moves ever-so-slightly towards us.       READ MORE...