The Euclid telescope is preparing to explore the "dark universe"
The mission focuses on two main elements of the dark universe
A SpaceX rocket is preparing to launch from Florida, Saturday, carrying an orbital telescope that will shed light on two mysterious cosmic phenomena known as dark energy and dark matter, invisible forces that scientists say represent 95 percent of the known universe.
The telescope, called Euclid, belongs to the European Space Agency and is located inside the cargo bay of the Falcon 9 rocket, which is scheduled to launch at about 15:00 GMT from Cape Canaveral Station.
The $1.4 billion mission, which will last at least six years, is expected to shed light on astrophysics and possibly understand the nature of gravity itself.
If all goes as planned, Euclid will separate from the rocket shortly after its launch into space, taking the telescope on a month-long journey to its destination in solar orbit about 1.6 million kilometers from Earth, a location where gravity is between Earth and the sun. stable.
From there, Euclid will explore the evolution of what astrophysicists refer to as the "dark universe" by using a wide-angle telescope to scan galaxies ten billion light-years from Earth across a vast expanse of sky.
The mission focuses on two fundamental elements of the dark universe, one of which is dark matter, an invisible but theoretically influencing cosmic material that is believed to give the universe its shape and structure.
The second is dark energy , a mysterious force that is thought to explain why the universe expanded so quickly long ago, something scientists figured out in the 1990s.
Source: websites