The initial colour images from ESA’s Euclid space telescope demonstrate its ability to capture wide-angle views that will shed light on the nature of dark energy and dark matter.
The Euclid space telescope has reached its operational orbit and initial test images show the probe’s two instruments are operating in fine fashion as they’re fine tuned for science observations.
The DESI instrument’s 5,000 fiber optic detectors and positioning elements are undergoing tests before starting an ambitious dark energy survey of 35 million galaxies.
Using quasars as “standard candles,” astronomers say they’ve been able to measure the effects of dark energy back to within a billion years of the Big Bang.
Astronomers, engineers and students are busy building a complex instrument that will be used with the 4-metre Mayall Telescope to probe the nature of dark energy by collecting the spectra of millions of galaxies.
A new computer analysis suggests much higher levels of dark energy would not, as many believe, prevent the formation of stars and planets, implying life might be more common across the Multiverse – assuming it exists – than previously believed.
Time-consuming observations by the Hubble Space Telescope indicate the universe is expanding faster today than predicted by standard models of the big bang that incorporate dark energy.
NASA has directed the team developing the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope, a flagship astronomy mission set for launch in the mid-2020s to study dark energy and exoplanets, to reduce the observatory’s scientific capabilities and keep it under a $3.2 billion cost cap.