【Patang Paseena (2024) Hindi Web Series】

There's a new spacecraft in town.

The Patang Paseena (2024) Hindi Web SeriesEuropean Space Agency's Euclid probe — launched in 2023 and packing a high-resolution 1.2-meter (four-foot) wide telescope — is designed to capture "razor-sharp" views of the cosmos, and the craft just beamed back its first images. They teem with brilliant stars and galaxies.

"We have never seen astronomical images like this before, containing so much detail. They are even more beautiful and sharp than we could have hoped for, showing us many previously unseen features in well-known areas of the nearby universe," René Laureijs, ESA’s Euclid project scientist, said in a statement. "Now we are ready to observe billions of galaxies, and study their evolution over cosmic time."

---

You May Also Like

---

---

SEE ALSO: NASA spacecraft keeps on going faster and faster and faster

The Euclid images are highly detailed because the mission's scientists are investigating a profoundly elusive, though omnipresent, target: dark matter. Astronomers know dark matter exists, because it gravitationally influences the objects we can see, but they don't know what it is. "This might be a surprise, but we don’t know what mostof the universe is made of. Seriously, we don’t," NASA explains.

Mashable Light Speed Want more out-of-this world tech, space and science stories? Sign up for Mashable's weekly Light Speed newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

Astronomers suspect that a whopping 95 percent of the universe is dark matter and energy. To better grasp it, cosmic researchers need to observe the precise "shapes, distances, and motions of billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light-years," the ESA explains.

"We have never seen astronomical images like this before, containing so much detail."

These first images, showing a diversity of galaxies and cosmic objects, prove the craft can capture these detailed cosmic views.

"This incredible snapshot from Euclid is a revolution for astronomy," writes the ESA. "The image shows 1,000 galaxies belonging to the Perseus Cluster, and more than 100,000 additional galaxies further away in the background, each containing up to hundreds of billions of stars." Credit: ESA / Euclid / Euclid Consortium / NASA // Image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre (CEA Paris-Saclay) / G. Anselmi / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO The Horsehead Nebula, an expansive, star-forming cloud of dust and gas some 1,375 light-years away from Earth. Credit: ESA / Euclid / Euclid Consortium / NASA // Image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre (CEA Paris-Saclay) / G. Anselmi / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO Galaxy IC 342, or Caldwell 5, is often obscured by the stars and matter in our Milky Way galaxy. "Euclid could take this beautiful and sharp image thanks to its incredible sensitivity and superb optics," the ESA explained. "Most important here is that Euclid used its near-infrared instrument to peer through the dust and measure the light from the many cool and low-mass stars that dominate the galaxy's mass." Credit: ESA / Euclid / Euclid Consortium / NASA // Image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre (CEA Paris-Saclay) / G. Anselmi / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO The dense stars clustered in the irregular galaxy NGC 6822, which is cosmically close to Earth at some 1.6 million light-years away. Credit: ESA / Euclid / Euclid Consortium / NASA // Image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre (CEA Paris-Saclay) / G. Anselmi / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO Hundreds of thousands of stars, held together by gravity, in the globular cluster called NGC 6397. Credit: ESA / Euclid / Euclid Consortium / NASA // Image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre (CEA Paris-Saclay) / G. Anselmi / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

The Euclid craft orbits the sun about 1 million miles from Earth, similar to the James Webb Space Telescope, a mission investigating some of the earliest galaxies in the universe, curious exoplanets (planets beyond our solar system), and even objects close to Earth.

---

Related Stories

---

• You've got to see Webb telescope's eerie view of the Crab Nebula
• NASA spacecraft has high-speed asteroid encounter and finds surprise
• The best telescopes for gazing at stars and solar eclipses in 2024
• Could humans have babies in space safely? Here's what we know.
• If a scary asteroid will actually strike Earth, here's how you'll know

Now that Euclid is capturing exceptional images of the cosmos, the real mission begins.

"In the coming months, scientists in the Euclid Consortium will analyse these images and publish a series of scientific papers in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, together with papers about the scientific objectives of the Euclid mission and the instrument performance," Yannick Mellier, an astrophysicist working on the mission, said in a statement.

• Science
• Tech
• Digital Culture
• Games
• Shopping
• Deals
• Social Good
• Entertainment

• Surveillance Valley
• California Girls by Zan Romanoff
• Complexity and Contradiction; Reading Audiobooks by Lorin Stein
• Polaroids by Misty Woodford
• How Education Reform Ate the Democratic Party
• Staff Picks: Microstyle, The Epiplectic Bicycle by The Paris Review
• Document: Ernest Hemingway to Ursula Hemingway by Ernest Hemingway
• Mystic River by James Franco
• Malls and movies and drones, oh my.
• Elusive Epigraphs; Travel Books by Lorin Stein

• Apple May 7 event: Last
• Best Mother's Day gift deals: Save 10% on the Bird Buddy at Amazon
• EHang refutes accusation of misleading investors in orders and sales · TechNode
• Tesla just laid off more employees after gutting the entire charging team
• China’s new hit game combines real
• Chinese EV maker Zeekr prepares for a $1 billion US IPO · TechNode
• Greta Thunberg is unfazed by stormy seas
• DC vs. RR 2024 livestream: Watch IPL for free
• China’s state chip fund makes $2 billion investment in Anhui
• It's time to watch the beluga whale cam

• Who’s Afraid of the Russian Soul?
• Gerard Malanga by Lars Movin
• Reading 'House of Holes' in Public by Andrew Palmer
• ‘Echo’ in Madison Square Park by Jane and Jonathan Wells
• The Gray Place
• Frida’s Corsets by Leslie Jamison
• TPR v. The New Yorker: Lucky and Good by Cody Wiewandt
• Poem: Remembering the Children of First Marriages by Lucy Tunstall
• After a Tragedy, the Ohio State Fair Endures
• Poem: Remembering the Children of First Marriages by Lucy Tunstall

• Dublin in My Tears
• Portfolio: Miroslav Tichý by Deirdre Foley
• Constructive Abandonment by Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber
• Complexity and Contradiction; Reading Audiobooks by Lorin Stein
• Keeping Education on the Radar
• Gerard Malanga by Lars Movin
• Staff Picks: Bookshop Door, Thinking Fast and Slow by The Paris Review
• Labor Days by Chris Flynn
• Whale Vomit Episode 7: Hope in the Time of Cholera
• Staff Picks: Food, Fiction, and Summer Dresses by The Paris Review