ESA completes Euclid telescope's assembly; inches closer to decoding the dark universe

The European Space Agency (ESA), on June 23, announced that it has completed the assembling of the Euclid spacecraft. Slated for launch in 2023, Euclid is a space telescope and will be used to explore the evolution of the dark universe. ESA says that it will do so by making a 3D map of the universe by observing billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light-years, across more than a third of the sky.

In the latest update, the mission team revealed that they attached Euclid's communication antenna. This marked the completion of the third major step after joining the spacecraft's payload module and service module along with attaching the solar arrays and sunshield. In the next step, engineers will test Euclid to confirm if it is ready for launch. 

What is the dark universe?

To understand Euclid's objective, it is important to first understand what the dark universe is in the first place. In simple terms, the dark universe is what has not been observed till now. According to NASA, a large part of our universe, approximately 68% is composed of dark energy whereas roughly 27% of it is made of dark matter. Together, these two components form the dark universe. Interestingly, many astronomers believe that the trillions of stars and planets located in billions of galaxies make up just 5% of the universe, at least of what has been observed so far. 

NASA says that the proof of dark energy, also called the cosmological constant, was presented two decades ago and scientists came to know that the universe was expanding faster than ever before because of this dark energy. As of now, astronomers do know that dark energy accelerates cosmic expansion while dark matter governs the growth of cosmic structures, but what they don't know is what they actually are. And this is what they intend to find out through Euclid. 

About Euclid mission

Designed to last six years, the Euclid spacecraft, which has a 1.2-m-diameter telescope along with two scientific instruments, will observe the universe's expansion and growth of its structures over the last ten billion years. It will also infer the role of the properties of dark energy, dark matter and gravity. ESA says that this mission is special also because it could explain not only how the universe has expanded over billions of years but why is it expanding at the current rate. Tap here to read more about it.