Euclid releases survey data covering 900 million galaxies

The European Space Agency has released the first major survey dataset from its Euclid space telescope, covering about 1,900 square degrees and documenting more than 900 million galaxies. The release, named DR1Foundation, is based on roughly 13 months of observations and contains 1.7 million gigabytes of data.

The surveyed area is about 9,500 times the apparent size of the full Moon and represents roughly 14% of the sky Euclid is planned to map. The mission aims to chart about one-third of the sky over six years, measuring galaxies’ distances as well as their positions to build a three-dimensional view of the universe.

The dataset includes about 15,000 candidates for strong gravitational lensing, in which the gravity of a foreground galaxy bends and distorts light from a more distant one. Researchers say studying the effect could help them examine how dark matter is distributed and test theories about its properties. The candidates have not all been confirmed as lenses.

Euclid project scientist Valeria Pettorino said the release covers more than a year of data across a substantially larger area than earlier observations. The European Space Agency also reported more than 60 million...