A Map of the Heavens

The European Space Agency launched its Euclid spacecraft from Florida on July 1 on a SpaceX rocket. The purpose of the mission is to study why the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate.

The spacecraft is 15.4 feet tall and 12.1 feet in diameter. It has two main parts: the service module, which contains the satellite systems, and the payload module, which consists of a 3.9-foot telescope, a visible wavelength camera and a near-infrared camera/spectrometer.

Euclid will circle the Sun-Earth Lagrange 2 point, the same orbit the James Webb Space Telescope uses. At nearly 1 million miles from Earth, Euclid will keep pace with the Earth’s orbit around the sun. The six-year mission will produce images that are at least four times sharper than ground-based telescopes.

Discover more from Andelino's Weblog

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

This entry was posted on July 15, 2023 at 1:00 am and is filed under uncategorized with tags A Map of the Heavens. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Andelino’s Weblog