More than nine hundred million galaxies appear in the first major data collection released by the European Space Agency from its Euclid space telescope mission on Thursday Zonebourse Suisse reported.
Mapping the Cosmic Web
The newly unveiled catalog covers a patch of the sky roughly 9,500 times the apparent size of the Moon, representing about 14 percent of the total area the mission will examine over six years. This release stems from 13 months of observations and totals 1.7 petabytes of data, according to Zonebourse Suisse. The project aims to build the largest three-dimensional atlas of the cosmos ever created by 2031.
“Cela marque une étape majeure pour la mission Euclid de l’ESA et pour toutes les personnes impliquées,” said Valeria Pettorino, a scientist at the ESA.
Pettorino explained that Euclid adds a third dimension to galaxy images by measuring their distance over a span of 10 billion years. Lalibre said that the ESA previously released initial images in November 2023 and May 2024, followed by preliminary atlas parts in October 2024 and smaller datasets in March 2025 and June 2026.
Thanks to these new data, scientists can now work on creating a 3D map of the universe and the cosmic web “avec un niveau de detail sans precedent”, according to Pettorino, who added “tant de decouvertes nous attendent encore”.
Euclid reconstituera cette toile cosmique et son évolution au cours du temps. C’est important car la configuration exacte de cette toile cosmique, le nombre d’amas ou de vides qu’elle contient et la vitesse à laquelle elle a évolué dépendent des propriétés de l’énergie sombre et de la matière noire,” Pettorino added to Zonebourse Suisse.
Euclid Data Catalogs 15,000 Strong Gravitational Lensing Candidates
Ordinary matter makes up about 5 percent of the universe, while invisible dark matter accounts for roughly 27 percent and dark energy comprises about 68 percent. Because dark matter and dark energy do not emit or absorb light, researchers rely on gravitational lensing to study their distribution.
The new Euclid data catalogs roughly 15,000 strong gravitational lensing candidates, surpassing the total number discovered over the previous half-century, according to Zonebourse Suisse.
“Les lentilles gravitationnelles peuvent être considérées comme des balances naturelles de l’Univers,” said Natalie Lines, a doctoral student in astrophysics at the University of Portsmouth and a member of the Euclid Consortium, told Zonebourse Suisse.
“L’intensité avec laquelle la lumière est déviée nous indique la quantité de matière contenue dans une galaxie, y compris ses composantes invisibles comme la matière noire. Grâce à des milliers de lentilles, nous pouvons étudier la manière dont la matière noire est répartie dans les galaxies et comprendre comment celles-ci se forment et évoluent au fil du temps cosmique,” Lines told Zonebourse Suisse.
Researchers Examine Galaxies and Quasars to Reveal Formation Eras
franceinfo reported that Marc Sauvage, an astrophysicist at the CEA and a member of the Euclid consortium, said that researchers are examining what the hundreds of millions of galaxies and millions of quasars reveal about their formation eras and the Milky Way.
Launched from Florida in 2023, the 4.7-meter by 3.7-meter spacecraft has also captured unprecedented views of the Milky Way and discovered a comet, according to franceinfo. Among the objects revealed in the new mosaic is the Messier 81 galaxy, located 12 million light-years from Earth, where Euclid’s sensitivity allows individual stars to be distinguished alongside a nearby blue dwarf galaxy.
Euclid has identified some 60 million quasars, including objects dating back to a time when the universe was only 5 percent of its current age. “Euclid en a découvert certains datant d’une époque où l’Univers n’avait que 5% de son âge actuel, ce qui signifie que leur lumière a commencé son voyage il y a environ 13 milliards d’années,” Lines told Zonebourse Suisse.
The ESA will publish further data in mid-2027.
