Euclid Telescope Releases First Data, Mapping 26 Million Galaxies

The European Space Agency's groundbreaking mission to explore dark matter and dark energy has unveiled its first dataset, offering insights into the cosmic web and gravitational lensing.

The initial data release includes observations of 26 million galaxies across three deep fields, covering 63 square degrees of the sky—just 0.4% of the total survey area.
Researchers identified 500 strong gravitational lensing candidates, doubling the number previously known and providing new tools to study dark matter.
The dataset hints at the large-scale structure of the universe, known as the cosmic web, shaped by dark matter and dark energy.
AI and citizen science played a crucial role in processing the data, classifying 380,000 galaxies and identifying rare phenomena like double gravitational lenses.
Euclid's six-year mission aims to map 1.5 billion galaxies, with the next major data release planned for October 2026, covering a much larger area.