Euclid

Mission Profile

Euclid is an ESA space telescope launched on 1 July 2023 aboard a Falcon 9 to the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point, designed to investigate the nature of dark energy and dark matter by mapping the large-scale structure of the universe over the past 10 billion years. Equipped with a 1.2-meter mirror feeding a visible imager (VIS) and a near-infrared photometer/spectrometer (NISP), it will survey roughly one-third of the sky with exceptional precision. By measuring galaxy shapes to detect weak gravitational lensing and galaxy clustering patterns (baryon acoustic oscillations), Euclid aims to determine why the universe's expansion is accelerating. It represents Europe's most ambitious cosmology mission and one of the most powerful dark energy surveys ever attempted.