03/07/23 (Agence Europe) – The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Euclid spacecraft has flown into the cosmos from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in pursuit of the mystery of dark matter and dark energy, the ESA announced on 1 July. Euclid will create a 3D map of the universe by observing billions of galaxies up to 10 billion light years away, in more than a third of the sky, over 6 years. It will reveal how the universe has expanded and how its structure has been formed over the course of cosmic history. Euclid is equipped with a 1.2 m reflecting telescope that powers two innovative scientific instruments: the VIS, which takes very sharp images of galaxies over a large part of the sky, and the NISP, which can analyse the infrared light of galaxies by wavelength to establish their precise distance. (CG)