I have now entered that strange twilight zone between Christmas and New Year during which it is difficult to remember which day is which, so I thought I’d just do a quick retrospective about the thing that has the biggest effect on my professional life in 2023, namely the Euclid satellite.
Euclid was launched halfway through the year, on July 1st, an event that took place just a week after or so after the annual Euclid Consortium Meeting in Copenhagen when I took over as Chair of the Euclid Consortium Diversity Committee. The latter led to a huge increase in the number of telecons I had to attend, not only the ECDC’s own bi-weekly Zoom meetings but also various other committees that the ECDC Chair attends ex officio. Much of the Chair’s work is confidential, which means there is no-one to consult with about the difficult matters. Had I not been on sabbatical since September I don’t think I would have had either the time or the energy to carry out these duties. It has taken me quite a while to get the hang of this role, but I do feel that it’s important and that I have contributed in a small way to the Euclid Consortium.
As for the scientific side of Euclid, after a few technical issues the commissioning of Euclid’s instruments is now more-or-less over and the final preparations are being made for the survey proper, which will take commence in the New Year. What is going on now is called a phase diversity analysis, which is being used to verify and improve the performance of the optical system.
In November, a set of Early Release Observations were published. Early in the New Year a number of scientific papers about these will be published, along with other papers about Euclid in general, including an overview paper that provides a high-level description of the mission. Data relating to the Early Release Observations will also be released to the general public.
After that the survey will begin in earnest. The full exercise will take six years to complete – I’ll have retired before it finishes – but there will be a first data release (DR1) using one year’s worth of survey data. That should give a good idea of how well it’s all going to work out for the full survey. That data will be made available to the public.
If all goes to plan, after the annual EC meeting (which next year will be in Rome, from 17th to 21st June), I’ll be stepping down as ECDC Chair and indeed from the ECDC altogether. That is just as well because my sabbatical will be over at the end of August and I’ll be back to a full teaching and admin load at Maynooth, assuming there’s still a Department to return to!
In the Dark 