AssetID: 54611509
Headline: Scientists Delight At 'Avalanche Of Discoveries' In Euclid Telescope's Galaxy Catalogue
Caption: **VIDEO AVAILABLE: CONTACT INFO@COVERMG.COM TO RECEIVE** Astronomers’ Christmas has come early as on19 March 2025, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Euclid mission released its first batch of survey data, showcasing hundreds of thousands of galaxies. Euclid is expected to capture images of more than 1.5 billion galaxies over six years, transmitting around 100GB of data daily. This vast dataset presents both tremendous opportunities for discovery and significant challenges in cataloguing and analysis. Artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, combined with the efforts of thousands of citizen scientists and experts, are playing a crucial role in making sense of this information. “We are at a pivotal moment in astronomy, where AI is essential to fully exploiting Euclid’s vast dataset,” said Mike Walmsley, a Euclid Consortium scientist based at the University of Toronto, Canada. With a decade of experience in astronomical deep learning algorithms, Walmsley highlighted how AI is revolutionising the way large-scale surveys are processed. “We are not only building the tools but also providing the measurements. What once took years to analyse in previous surveys can now be achieved in a matter of weeks,” he added. A key milestone of this effort is the first detailed catalogue of over 380,000 galaxies, classified by features such as spiral arms, central bars, and tidal tails indicative of galaxy mergers. This catalogue has been compiled using the ‘Zoobot’ AI algorithm, trained by nearly 10,000 citizen scientists through the Galaxy Zoo project. The newly released catalogue represents just 0.4% of the total number of galaxies Euclid will observe in similar resolution over its mission. The final dataset is expected to provide the most detailed morphological analysis of galaxies ever undertaken, helping scientists explore questions about how spiral arms form and how supermassive black holes evolve. “We are examining galaxies from their internal structures to their external environments, studying how they transform over time,” said Clotilde Laigle, an expert in data processing at the Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris. “Euclid is a treasure trove of data with far-reaching implications, from understanding galaxy evolution to answering key cosmological questions.” Euclid’s mission also aims to map the distribution of dark matter in the Universe by studying how light from distant galaxies is bent by intervening matter—a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. When these distortions are particularly pronounced, they produce effects such as Einstein rings and multiple-imaged lenses. Using AI algorithms for an initial sweep, followed by human verification, Euclid has identified 500 strong gravitational lens candidates—most of which were previously unknown. These lenses will be crucial in revealing the unseen distribution of dark matter throughout the cosmos. The data release, spanning three large sky mosaics, includes images of galaxy clusters, active galactic nuclei, and transient cosmic events. It provides the first classification of more than 380,000 galaxies and 500 gravitational lens candidates through combined AI and citizen science efforts. “Euclid has once again proven itself to be the ultimate discovery machine,” said ESA’s Director of Science, Professor Carole Mundell. “With this first data release, we are opening a treasure trove of information for scientists to explore some of the most intriguing mysteries in modern astrophysics.” Euclid has already surveyed three deep fields in the sky, where it will conduct some of its most detailed observations. In just one week, the telescope identified 26 million galaxies, with the most distant ones located up to 10.5 billion light-years away. The mission will revisit these regions dozens of times, gradually compiling an unprecedented deep-field atlas of the cosmos. The initial images provide a preview of Euclid’s final dataset, which will cover one-third of the sky—14,000 square degrees—in exceptional detail. This grand cosmic map will be invaluable in tracing the vast cosmic web of matter, which serves as the underlying structure of the Universe. “It is remarkable how much data we have obtained from just a single observation of these deep fields,” said Valeria Pettorino, ESA’s Euclid project scientist. “As we continue surveying these areas over the next six years, our understanding of the large-scale structure of the Universe will become clearer than ever before.”
Keywords: euclid, feature, photo, video, space, astronomy, science, feature
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