Archive for European Space Agency

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“First Light” Images from Euclid

Posted in Euclid, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , on July 31, 2023 by telescoper

As I promised a couple of days ago, the “first light” images from the European Space Agency’s Euclid mission have now been released. You can find all the details here, but a summary is that these are “engineering” images, rather than part of the full survey to be undertaken by Euclid, and the commissioning of the instruments is not quite finished, but the telescope is now in focus and both instruments (the visual instrument, VIS, and the Near-Infrared Spectrometer & Photometer, NISP) are working well enough to show some preliminary results.

Anyway, here are the pictures released today, first from VIS:

Euclid early commissioning test images, showing an image by the VIS instrument (visible light). The full focal plane of VIS consisting of 36 detectors is shown on the left, and one detector in higher resolution on the right. Credits: © ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

The next one is from NISP:

Euclid early commissioning test images, showing an image by the NISP instrument (near-infrared light). The full focal plane of NISP consisting of 16 detectors is shown on the left, and part of one detector in higher resolution on the right. Credits: © ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

This final one, also from NISP, shows it working in grism mode, which allows the light from sources to be dispersed into a spectrum, enabling us to get much more information about the sources galaxies than a straightforward image would. The resulting images look a bit strange to the untrained eye – as the light from a point is spread out into a streak – but the result is wonderfully rich in information:

Euclid early commissioning test images, showing an image by the NISP instrument (near-infrared light), in its grism slitless spectroscopy mode. The full focal plane of NISP consists of 16 detectors, here a part of one detector is shown in full resolution. Credits: © ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

For more information – and some higher-resolution images – see the official Euclid press release here.

For myself, I’d just say these images are absolutely amazing given that they were taken during the commissioning phase and the instruments aren’t fully tweaked yet. Over the next few weeks, there will be a performance verification phase which will tell us how good Euclid will be at meeting its science goals. But so far it’s all looking very good indeed. I’ve only ever seen simulations of what would come out and it’s very exciting to see what the real thing looks like!

Hats off to the brilliant instrumentation experts who not only designed and built the kit but who have been working so hard on the commissioning. They’ve done so much in the month that has passed since the launch!

P.S. You can find here a nice explainer of some of the instrumental artefacts you might have spotted in the images above.

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Euclid has arrived…

Posted in Euclid, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , on July 29, 2023 by telescoper

Here’s a little video update to accompany the news that, as of yesterday (28th July), the European Space Agency’s Euclid spacecraft has reached its orbit around L2, the second Lagrange Point of the Earth-Sun system:

More news is on the way. Commissioning of the instruments is now complete and the telescope is in focus. On Monday 31st July, ESA will release the first actual images from the Euclid telescope!

Stay tuned here.

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Euclid in a Nutshell

Posted in Euclid, Literature, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , on February 21, 2023 by telescoper

O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell and count
myself a king of infinite space…

Hamlet, Act 2, Scene II.

It Hamlet rather than Euclid who said those words, but they came into my mind when I saw the latest nice video about the Euclid Mission from the European Space Agency, entitled Euclid in a Nutshell. It’s a quick one-minute summary of of what the mission is for and what it will do:

The text with the video reads:

ESA’s Euclid mission is designed to explore the composition and evolution of the dark Universe. The space telescope will create a great map of the large-scale structure of the Universe across space and time by observing billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light-years, across more than a third of the sky. Euclid will explore how the Universe has expanded and how structure has formed over cosmic history, revealing more about the role of gravity and the nature of dark energy and dark matter.

Euclid is a fully European mission, built and operated by ESA, with contributions from NASA. The Euclid Consortium – consisting of more than 2000 scientists from 300 institutes in 13 European countries, the US, Canada and Japan – provided 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 near-infrared detectors of the NISP instrument.

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A Backronym for Euclid?

Posted in Euclid, mathematics, Poetry, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , on February 13, 2023 by telescoper
The Euclid Satellite

As a fully paid-up member of the Campaign for the Rejection of Acronymic Practices I was pleased to see the top brass in the Euclid Consortium issue instructions that encourage authors to limit their use of acronyms in official technical documents. Acronyms are widely used in the names of astronomical instruments and surveys. Take BOOMERanG (Balloon Observations Of Millimetric Extragalactic Radiation And Geophysics) and HIPPARCOS (HIgh Precision PARallax COllecting Satellite) to name just two. A much longer list can be found here.

I’m very pleased that the name of the European Space Agency’s Euclid mission is not an acronym. It is actually named after Euclid the Greek mathematician widely regarded as the father of geometry. Quite a few people who have asked me have been surprised that Euclid is not an acronym so I thought it might be fun to challenge my readers – both of them – to construct an appropriate backronym i.e. an acronym formed by expanding the name Euclid into the words of a phrase describing the Euclid mission. The best I’ve seen so far is:

Exploring the Universe with Cosmic Lensing to Identify Dark energy

But Euclid doesn’t just use Cosmic Lensing so I don’t think it’s entirely satisfactory. Anyway, your suggestions are welcome via the box below.

While you’re thinking, here is the best poetic description I have found (from Edna St Vincent Millay):

Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare. 
Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace, 
And lay them prone upon the earth and cease 
To ponder on themselves, the while they stare 
At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere 
In shapes of shifting lineage...

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How Euclid will scan the sky

Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , on February 7, 2023 by telescoper

A missive from Euclid High Command arrived yesterday confirming that ESA’s Euclid mission would be launched by SpaceX on a Falcon 9 rocket on a date between July 1st and July 30 (2023). It will soon be time to start getting nervous!

I also noticed that another video has appeared on the Euclid public website showing how the satellite will work. It’s not a traditional general-purpose observatory on which different users bid for time to observe different objects (as is the case for JWST, for example) but a dedicated mission that will compile a systematic survey with very specific science goals.

Euclid scans across the sky using a ‘step-and-stare’ method, combining separate measurements to form the largest cosmological survey ever conducted in the visible and near-infrared. Each time Euclid ‘stares’, its telescope points to a position in the sky, performing imaging and spectroscopic measurements on an area of approximately 0.5 deg² around this position. After each stare, the telescope steps to a new position.

This way the instruments will scan over a total of around 35% of the sky. This is the largest area over which one can guarantee a a complete detection of the galaxies necessary for Euclid’s cosmological studies. The rest of the sky is dominated by the high density of bright stars in our galaxy, and by the dust in the plane of our Solar System, both of which get in the way of the cosmology observations.

I hope this clarifies the situation.

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The Euclid Public Website

Posted in Euclid, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , on February 2, 2023 by telescoper

With the European Space Agency’s Euclid mission now scheduled for launch in the 3rd Quarter of 2023 a lot of work has been put in recently in developing the Euclid mission’s public website. For those of you not in the know, there is a summary on the new website:

ESA’s Euclid mission is designed to explore the composition and evolution of the dark Universe. The space telescope will create a great map of the large-scale structure of the Universe across space and time by observing billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light-years, across more than a third of the sky. Euclid will explore how the Universe has expanded and how structure has formed over cosmic history, revealing more about the role of gravity and the nature of dark energy and dark matter.

The public website is can be found here. Check it out. Many more stories, pictures and videos will be added over the forthcoming weeks but in the mean time here is a taster animated movie that shows various elements of the Euclid spacecraft, including the telescope, payload module and solar panels.

Even more information about the science to be done with Euclid can be found on the Euclid Consortium website, which is being revamped ahead of the launch.

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SpaceX for Euclid

Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , , , on October 20, 2022 by telescoper

Aa few months ago I posted a piece about the European Space Agency’s Euclid Mission which had been due to be launched in 2023 on a Soyuz ST 2-1b rocket. That no longer being possible because of Russian’s invasion of Ukraine, it seemed there would be a lengthy delay in the launch of Euclid, with late 2024 seeming the earliest feasible date for launch on the obvious alternative, the new Ariane 6.

I ended that piece with this:

It seems to me that the best hope for a resolution of this problem would be for ESA to permit the launch of Euclid using something other than Ariane 6, which means using a vehicle supplied by an independent commercial operator. I sincerely hope ESA is able to come up with an imaginative solution to this very serious problem.

In the Dark, 17th June

Well I’ve just read official confirmation that a few hours ago ESA Council has approved the proposal to launch Euclid on a Falcon 9 rocket operated by SpaceX. If all goes well -specifically if the Euclid Consortium member states agree with this move – it might be possible to launch Euclid by the end of 2023. Although I don’t have any firm information about what date is being proposed I believe it could be as soon as July 2023.

Setting aside any personal opinions about Elon Musk, the Falcon 9 has proved to be very reliable, with the latest version having 110 out of 110 successful launches. Euclid will not be in an Earth orbit, like most of the satellites so far launched by SpaceX, but has to be delivered to the 2nd Lagrange Point, L2. That should not pose to much of a difficulty, however.

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Can SpaceX save Euclid?

Posted in Euclid, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , , , on July 23, 2022 by telescoper

A little over a month ago I posted a piece about the European Space Agency’s Euclid Mission which had been due to be launched in 2023 on a Soyuz ST 2-1b rocket. That no longer being possible because of Russian’s invasion of Ukraine, it seemed there would be a lengthy delay in the launch of Euclid, with late 2024 seeming the earliest feasible date for launch on the obvious alternative, the new Ariane 6.

I ended that piece with this:

It seems to me that the best hope for a resolution of this problem would be for ESA to permit the launch of Euclid using something other than Ariane 6, which means using a vehicle supplied by an independent commercial operator. I sincerely hope ESA is able to come up with an imaginative solution to this very serious problem.

In the Dark, 17th June

I have heard various rumours since then but yesterday I saw a piece by Paris-based astronomer Henry Joy McCracken (a famous name in Ireland) that reveals that a proposal is being actively investigated to launch Euclid on a Falcon 9 rocket operated by Elon Musk’s outfit SpaceX. If all goes well it might be possible to launch Euclid by the end of 2023, and at a fraction of the cost of the alternative Ariane 6-2.

Setting aside any personal opinions about Elon Musk, the Falcon 9 has proved to be very reliable, with the latest version having 110 out of 110 successful launches. Euclid will not be in an Earth orbit, like most of the satellites so far launched by SpaceX, but has to be delivered to the 2nd Lagrange Point, L2. That should not pose to much of a difficulty.

As far as I understand it the decision whether or not this is feasible will be taken later this year after extensive engineering tests, especially to see how Euclid can cope with the spectrum of vibrations generated by Falcon 9. There’s no guarantee this will work out but it might just save a lot of money and a lot of careers.

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Euclid Launch Concern

Posted in Euclid, Politics, Science Politics, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , on April 27, 2022 by telescoper

I saw the following picture on Twitter. It was taken during a talk at the annual Euclid Consortium Meeting (which I am not at) and it gives a not -very-optimistic update about the timescale for the launch of Euclid.

Picture Credit: Hervé Aussel

I thought a delay in the launch was inevitable as soon as news broke of the Russian invasion of Ukraine (see here) because the original plan was to launch on a Russian Soyuz vehicle. The subsequent decision by the Russians to remove all their personnel from the launch site at Kourou (see here) made these even more likely, although according to the slide not certain.

The basic problem is that Plan B involves launching Euclid on an Ariane 6 rocket (which comes in two varieties, Ariane62 and Ariane64, with two and four payloads boosters respectively). The problems are (a) that Ariane 6 is that it hasn’t yet had its first flight and (b) Euclid isn’t the only spacecraft having to find an alternative launcher. The competition from commercial and military satellites may mean a lengthy delay to the Euclid Launch unless lobbying succeeds at a political level, which is what the last lines of the slide are about.

Being one of life’s pessimists I think a long delay is the likeliest outcome, though this is not based on any specific knowledge at all about the discussions going on and I’d be delighted to be proved wrong. I am now however seriously wondering whether Euclid will be launched before I retire!

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Merry JWSTmas!

Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , on December 25, 2021 by telescoper

Well it’s 10.20am on Christmas Day and I’ve got up specially early in order to be ready for the launch at 12.20pm today (Irish Time) of the James Webb Space Telescope from Kourou in French Guiana. The JWST project has been almost thirty years in the making and it is great that it is finally going to be heading into space. The launch however is just the start – JWST has a very complicated journey in front of it – as demonstrated by the following little video.

In particular, JWST should separate from the Ariane 5 launcher at about 27 minutes after takeoff so look out for that.

I have no direct personal involvement with JWST but I am still feeling a bit nervous. I can’t imagine how it must feel to have spent decades working on it. I know a great many astronomers around the world who are waiting anxiously and hoping all goes well. Fingers crossed!

If you want to watch the launch live you can do so on Youtube here:

You can find alternative viewing options here.

The launch window opens at 12.20 UTC and lasts for 31 minutes but I understand they’re going to launch as early as possible within that so it looks like we’re in for a launch before lunch rather than the other way round.

I’ll update with any news as the day goes on.

UPDATE: 12.28pm Launched right on time, everything nominal as JWST leaves Earth’s atmosphere propelled by Stage One of the Ariane 5.

UPDATE: 12.31pm Stage One jettisoned, Stage 2 ignition. All still nominal.

UPDATE: 12.48pm JWST has separated from the launch vehicle and is on its way. The solar panel is deployed and is working. The spectacular onboard video showing the separation of JWST from the Ariane 5 launch vehicle and the deployment of the solar panels was supplied by Irish company Réaltra.

P.S. I still think JWST should have had a different name.

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