Archive for Euclid

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Euclid Galaxy Zoo

Posted in Euclid, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , , on August 1, 2024 by telescoper

Today sees the launch of a new initiative between Galaxy Zoo (part of the Zooniverse conglomerate) and the Euclid Consortium which I am delighted to be able to promote on this blog. What follows the graphic is the text of the announcement which is being promoted across social media today. I’ll start with a little factoid which might surprise you: already in November 2023, before science operations even began, Euclid had sent back to Earth more data than the Hubble Space Telescope has done in in its entire lifetime.

Thanks to a new Galaxy Zoo project launched today, you can help identify the shapes of thousands of galaxies in images taken by ESA’s Euclid space telescope. These classifications will help scientists answer questions about how the shapes of galaxies have changed over time, and what caused these changes and why. 

In its mission to map out the Universe, Euclid will image hundreds of thousands of distant galaxies. In November 2023 and May 2024, the world got its first glimpse at the quality of Euclid’s images, which included a variety of sources, from nearby nebulas to distant clusters of galaxies. In the background of each of these images are hundreds of thousands of distant galaxies. 

This square astronomical image shows thousands of galaxies across the black expanse of space. The closest thousand or so galaxies belong to the Perseus Cluster.

For the next six years, the spacecraft is expected to send around 100 GB of data back to Earth every day. That’s a lot of data, and labelling that through human effort alone is incredibly difficult.  

That’s why ESA and Euclid consortium scientists have partnered with Galaxy Zoo. This is a citizen science project on the Zooniverse platform, where members of the public can help classify the shapes of galaxies.  

Euclid will release its first catalogues of data to the scientific community starting in 2025, but in the meantime any volunteer on the Galaxy Zoo project can have a glimpse at previously unseen images from the telescope. 

You could be the first person to lay eyes on a galaxy 

The first set of data, which contains tens of thousands of galaxies selected from more than 800 000 images, has been made available on the platform, and is waiting for you to help classify them. 

If you partake in the project, you could be the first to lay eyes on Euclid’s latest images. Not only that, you could also be the first human ever to see the galaxy in the image.  

The Galaxy Zoo project was first launched in 2007, and asked members of the public to help classify the shapes of a million galaxies from images taken by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. In the past 17 years, Galaxy Zoo has remained operational, with more than 400 000 people classifying the shapes of galaxies from other projects and telescopes, including the the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope.  

Humans and AI working together 

These classifications are not only useful for their immediate scientific potential, but also as a training set for Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms. Without being taught what to look for by humans, AI algorithms struggle to classify galaxies. But together, humans and AI can accurately classify limitless numbers of galaxies. 

At Zooniverse, the team has developed an AI algorithm called ZooBot, which will sift through the Euclid images first and label the ‘easier ones’ of which a lot of examples already exist in previous galaxy surveys. When ZooBot is not confident on the classification of a galaxy, perhaps due to complex or faint structures, it will show it to users on Galaxy Zoo to get their human classifications, which will then help ZooBot to learn more.  

On the platform, volunteers will be presented with images of galaxies and will then be asked several questions, such as “Is the galaxy round?”, or “Are there signs of spiral arms?”. 

After being trained on these human classifications, ZooBot will be integrated in the Euclid catalogues to provide detailed classifications for hundreds of millions of galaxies, making it the largest scientific catalogue to date, and enabling groundbreaking new science.  

This project makes use of the ESA Datalabs digital platform to generate a large number of cutouts of galaxies imaged by Euclid. 

Thanks to a new Galaxy Zoo project launched today, you can help identify the shapes of thousands of galaxies in images taken by ESA’s Euclid space telescope. These classifications will help scientists answer questions about how the shapes of galaxies have changed over time, and what caused these changes and why. 

The first set of data, which contains tens of thousands of galaxies selected from more than 800 000 images, has been made available on the platform, and is waiting for you to help classify them.  

Examples of Euclid galaxies to classify are shown in this image.  

Euclid Galaxy Zoo galaxies to classify. Forty galaxies are shown against a black background. The galaxies are all different in shape, some look like spirals, some look barred, or smooth. Image credit: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO or ESA Standard Licence 

About Euclid 

Euclid was launched in July 2023 and started its routine science observations on 14 February 2024. The goal of the mission is to reveal the hidden influence of dark matter and dark energy on the visible Universe. Over a period of six years, Euclid will observe the shapes, distances and motions of billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light-years.  

Euclid is a European mission, built and operated by ESA, with contributions from NASA. The Euclid Consortium – consisting of more than 2000 scientists from 300 institutes in 15 European countries, the USA, Canada and Japan – is responsible for providing the scientific instruments and scientific data analysis. ESA selected Thales Alenia Space as prime contractor for the construction of the satellite and its service module, with Airbus Defence and Space chosen to develop the payload module, including the telescope. NASA provided the detectors of the Near-Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer, NISP. Euclid is a medium-class mission in ESA’s Cosmic Vision Programme. 

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Farewell to the ECDC!

Posted in Biographical, Euclid, Harassment Bullying etc with tags , , , , on July 2, 2024 by telescoper

It was officially announced at last year’s Euclid Consortium Meeting in Copenhagen that I had been appointed to the role of Chair of the Euclid Consortium Diversity Committee (ECDC). Following the tradition, a similar announcement was made at the Rome meeting this year that from 1st July there would be a new Chair in the form of Helmut Dannerbauer, who is based at the Instituto de Astrofísicas de Canarias on Tenerife. There are still a few loose ends to tie up, not helped by my computer problems, but I’m gradually winding up my activity on the ECDC and handing things over to Helmut.

As I pointed out in my post last year, I was in the final year of my stint on the ECDC when I was made Chair so it was always envisaged that I would serve for only one year. I only agreed to do it, in fact, because I had my sabbatical coming up. I definitely wouldn’t have been able to do the job alongside a full teaching and other workload and didn’t even consider continuing after my sabbatical was over.

Instead of trying to describe the role and activities of the ECDC generally, I will direct you to the information given on the brand new Euclid Consortium website which is a one-stop shop for everything to do with Euclid. You can find specific information about Equity, Diversity and Conduct there and/or on the ECDC’s own public website here from which I’ve taken a screengrab of the nice banner:

Just for information, the Euclid Consortium has about 2600 members so it really is a very large organization. It is also very international, with many people working in countries they were not born in and whose language is not their first. It is the aim of the ECDC to encourage a positive and inclusive environment within it for the benefit of everyone in it. The diversity in Euclid has many dimensions, including gender, nationality, ethnicity, and career stage as well as type of work; Euclid comprises specialists in instrumentation, software engineering, observational astronomy and theory to name but a few. The aim of the ECDC is to try to make sure everyone can work together in an inclusive environment.

It has been good to see over the few years some policies have been implemented to allow a greater diversity among leadership roles in the Euclid Consortium, especially by having a planned programme of rotating chairs and coordinators. I think this and other inititiatives are making a difference.

Euclid was launched a year ago yesterday, and the past twelve months have involved a huge amount of hard work by everyone concerned and not a little tension in some parts. The stress will continue as we head towards DR1, the first main Data Release, in 2026. The Euclid Consortium has a Code of Conduct to remind members to behave professionally towards their fellow workers at all times.

I’d like to wish all the new members of the ECDC, and those continuing, all the best in the future. I’d also like to extend personal thanks to those members who are leaving this year, especially Marc, Florence and Chiara. We have had regular telecons virtually every fortnight for the last year and I’ve enjoyed everyone’s contribution to the discussions.

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Two More Euclid ERO videos

Posted in Euclid, Football with tags , , , , on July 1, 2024 by telescoper

I’ve been a bit busy catching up on things since my departure from Barcelona with the result that I almost forgot to post anything today. Fortunately there are two more Euclid Early Release Observations I can share to fill the gap. They’re about 4 minutes apiece, so there’ll be plenty time to watch them while waiting for the VAR operators to make an offside decision during the next European Championship match…

The first is entitled Measuring Luminosity Function for the Perseus Cluster of Galaxies using Euclid ERO data:

The article describing this work can be found on arXiv here; it perhaps makes up for the missing article in the title of the video.

The second one is this, about gravitational lensing and the search for high-redshift galaxies:

The paper for this one can be found on arXiv here.

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Why Do We Need Simulations for the Euclid Telescope?

Posted in Euclid, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , on June 23, 2024 by telescoper

Until I can get my laptop fixed and/or get a new one, my ability to write blog posts is a bit limited. At least there is a sizeable collection of things to share, including a steady supply of  new videos from the Euclid Consortium like this one:

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The Mystery Object

Posted in Euclid with tags , , , , on June 18, 2024 by telescoper

Among the various items of Euclid Merch in the goody bag given to attendees at the annual Euclid Consortium Meeting in Rome are a nice bag, a cap, a notebook, and a mystery object:

Can anyone suggest what this item does?

(Wrong answers preferred.)

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Sono arrivato a Roma

Posted in Biographical, Euclid with tags , , , , on June 17, 2024 by telescoper
Crossing the Italian Coast

This morning, I took a short (~ 90 minute) flight from the pleasantly warm (23°C) Barcelona to the swelteringly hot (31°C) city of Rome. It’s actually forecast to be 39°C on Thursday and 40°C on Friday. Fortunately, I’m not staying that long!

The occasion for this trip is the annual Euclid Consortium Meeting, which is being held at the Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza“. The main sessions are in the splendid Aula Maxima thereof, with its imposing mural:

I’m giving a talk there in the first plenary session  tomorrow…

Update: here’s me giving my plenary talk:

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Euclid Updates

Posted in Euclid, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , on June 11, 2024 by telescoper

I’m travelling back to Barcelona today, later than planned because I’ve had a heavy cold that I struggled to shake off and didn’t want to infect fellow passengers on the flight. While I’m in transit I thought I’d share some updates about the European Space Agency’s Euclid mission.

The first thing to share is a piece by Knud Jahnke with news about Euclid’s issue with ice in the optical system. The latest intervention has led to an improvement, but since it is a closed system ice will probably form again – though perhaps not in the same place – and further procedures will probably be necessary in future. In the meantime, though, the survey resumes.

Now for some short videos -three, to be precise – about the Early Release Observations mentioned here. I posted another one in this series here. I think the titles are self-explanatory:

And if that isn’t enough, for those of you who like simulations here is another video about the Euclid Flagship simulation described in this paper.

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Sub-Stellar Objects in the Euclid Early Release Observations

Posted in Euclid, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , on May 31, 2024 by telescoper

I have a busy day in front of me here in Not-Barcelona so I thought I’d do a quick post sharing a video about the Euclid Early Release Observations (EROs) that came out last week. The press materials accompanying the release of the EROs and the science paper relating to this work, mention “freely floating planets”, but that doesn’t make sense in terms of the modern definition of a planet so here they are described as sub-stellar objects. The paper describing this work can be found on the arXiv here.

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Euclid Paper Day!

Posted in Barcelona, Euclid, Maynooth, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , , , , on May 24, 2024 by telescoper

This morning’s arXiv update brought the expected deluge of preprints from Euclid. You can find details of all fifteen of the new articles here. Ten of them relate to the Early Release Observations of which five were announced yesterday and five last November. These are essentially byproducts of the testing and calibration phase of the Euclid mission rather than the main cosmological survey. ESA is making a series of short videos about these results which I will share on here from time to time.

Of more direct relevance to cosmologists such as myself are the following five reference papers:

The overview paper, led by Yannick Mellier (Euclid Consortium Lead), giving a general description of the mission capabilities and science goals, will be the main reference paper and just about every active member of the Euclid Consortium is on the author list (including myself). That’s over a thousand people, not quite at the level of the Large Hadron Collider but getting there. I do think we need to find a better way of giving credit to work in large collaborations than through authorship, but until someone comes up with a workable scheme, and people responsible for hiring researchers adopt it, we’re stuck with what we’ve got. At least I can say that I’ve read that paper (which is 94 pages long, including the author list)

Papers II-IV are technical articles relating to Euclid’s instruments and their calibration, which will also be important references for the survey part of the Euclid mission. Paper V is about the Flagship simulations and the mock catalogues produced therefrom; I discussed these a while ago here. It is led by Francisco Castander of Institut de Ciencies de l’Espai, who organized the meeting I attended recently here in Barcelona.

These papers now now be peer-reviewed and, assuming they are accepted, published in a special issue of Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A).

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New Results from Euclid

Posted in Euclid, Maynooth, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , on May 23, 2024 by telescoper

As it was foretold, exciting new results from the European Space Agency’s Euclid mission have now been released.

You can read more about these images here.

Together with the five images released last November that makes a total of ten Early Release Observations from the pre-survey phase of Euclid. It’s not all about the pictures, however. Today also saw the release of ten scientific papers to go with these images, as well as five reference papers for the main survey. You can find them all, with accompanying information here. They will be announced on arXiv tomorrow.

You might also be interested to read my Euclid piece on RTÉ Brainstorm which has just appeared. This is not just about the new images, but gives an update on what Euclid has been up to since launch, and what we can expect in the future. There’s also a version adapted for Maynooth University PR purposes here. It includes this quote:

Today’s release of new data and technical papers from Euclid is exciting in itself but also marks the start, after months of painstaking calibration and testing of the instruments, of Euclid’s main cosmological survey. We are on the threshold of a new era in cosmology. Maynooth is the only University in Ireland to be involved in this mission and it is very exciting to be at the forefront of such an important scientific development.

I’m also quoted in a piece in the Irish Times. You’ll probably find the article blocked by a paywall but my bit is:

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