The European Space Agency released the largest dataset yet from its Euclid space telescope: 1.7 petabytes of observations covering more than 900 million galaxies, Slashdot reports, citing Reuters. The survey area is about 9,500 times the size of the moon as seen from Earth. The goal is the largest-ever 3D atlas of the cosmos, spanning more than a third of the sky, by 2031.
Euclid launched in 2023 to study how the universe expanded and formed structure, and what dark energy and dark matter are. ESA project scientist Valeria Pettorino said Euclid will measure galaxies’ distances too, “where galaxies are in space and time, across 10 billion years,” and reconstruct the cosmic web.
My take
900 million galaxies. “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Psalm 19:1). Somebody grab me a petabyte of disk.
God Bless, and Use the Source!
