Stars light up largest and most detailed shot of Milky Way's centre
The Euclid space telescope has captured the largest and most detailed image yet of the Milky Way's galactic bulge, revealing hundreds of millions of stars in unprecedented clarity. The image covers an area 500 times the size of the full Moon and offers new insights into the structure and star formation in our galaxy's centre.
Background
- The Guardian article reports a new image of the Milky Way's galactic bulge — the dense, star-packed central region of our galaxy — captured by the Euclid space telescope, a European Space Agency (ESA) mission launched in 2023.
- Euclid's primary goal is to study dark energy and dark matter by mapping billions of galaxies across cosmic time, but it also produces stunning images of our own galaxy.
- The galactic bulge is heavily obscured by gas and dust, making it difficult to observe with visible-light telescopes; Euclid's near-infrared instrument can see through this dust, revealing previously hidden stars.
- This image is described as the largest and most detailed ever taken of the Milky Way's centre, containing hundreds of millions of stars and covering an area roughly 100 times the size of the full Moon in the sky.