One month ago. Euclid_begins_its_dark_Universe_survey
Today, ESA’s space telescope Euclid begins its survey of the dark Universe. Over the next six years, Euclid will observe billions of galaxies. One of Euclid’s strengths is that it can observe 50,000 galaxies in one photo lasting 74 minutes. Euclid will take more than 40,000 of these photos.
Two weeks ago. Euclid-sight-restored
Euclid’s sight has been restored. More easily than expected. Previously, a layer of water ice no thicker than a strand of DNA on the optics was disrupting its sight. Mission teams spent months devising a procedure to heat up individual mirrors in the instrument’s complex optical system, without interfering with the finely tuned mission’s calibration. After the very first mirror was warmed by just 34°, Euclid’s sight was restored.
The simplicity and speed of the cure means that if and when this problem occurs again, it won’t take a significant amount of time to fix. And therefore will not interfere with the number of viewing hours of the telescope. “It will be simple to repeat this selective decontamination procedure every six to 12 months and with very little cost to science observations or the rest of the mission”.
This heating allowed the amount of light collected by Euclid to be increased by 20%.