Paris: The
Euclid space telescope has captured the largest and most detailed photo ever
taken of our galaxy's crowded heart, a dazzling image packed with 60 million
stars, the European Space Agency has announced. The new photo of the Milky
Way's bright centre will help in the search for planets beyond our Solar
System.
At
the centre of our spiral galaxy "lies the bulge - a large bubble
containing billions of stars," said French astronomer Jean-Charles
Cuillandre, who works on the Euclid mission. Euclid, launched in 2023, captured
the image with its visible light camera over 26 hours in March 2025. The mosaic
is composed of nine photographs, each covering an area of the sky larger than
the Moon. The original image was captured in black and white, with colour added
using observations from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope.
The
image will help scientists measure the mass of exoplanets through a process
called microlensing, which happens when one star crosses over another. The
closer star "acts like a cosmic magnifying glass, bending and brightening
the background star's light," the ESA explained. If a planet is orbiting
the closer star, its gravity slightly bends this light, allowing scientists to
track the planet down.
"During the last 20 years, almost 300 exoplanets have been discovered using this technique, all with ground-based telescopes and all towards the centre of our galaxy," said French astronomer Jean-Philippe Beaulieu. The new Euclid image "includes 51 known planetary systems - and it will assist in studying many more that will be found," he added.
Paris: The
Euclid space telescope has captured the largest and most detailed photo ever
taken of our galaxy's crowded heart, a dazzling image packed with 60 million
stars, the European Space Agency has announced. The new photo of the Milky
Way's bright centre will help in the search for planets beyond our Solar
System.
At
the centre of our spiral galaxy "lies the bulge - a large bubble
containing billions of stars," said French astronomer Jean-Charles
Cuillandre, who works on the Euclid mission. Euclid, launched in 2023, captured
the image with its visible light camera over 26 hours in March 2025. The mosaic
is composed of nine photographs, each covering an area of the sky larger than
the Moon. The original image was captured in black and white, with colour added
using observations from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope.
The
image will help scientists measure the mass of exoplanets through a process
called microlensing, which happens when one star crosses over another. The
closer star "acts like a cosmic magnifying glass, bending and brightening
the background star's light," the ESA explained. If a planet is orbiting
the closer star, its gravity slightly bends this light, allowing scientists to
track the planet down.
"During
the last 20 years, almost 300 exoplanets have been discovered using this
technique, all with ground-based telescopes and all towards the centre of our
galaxy," said French astronomer Jean-Philippe Beaulieu. The new Euclid
image "includes 51 known planetary systems - and it will assist in
studying many more that will be found," he added.
