Spiral galaxy IC 342
The second image features spiral galaxy IC 342, a galaxy in the Milky Way plane behind our galaxy’s disc. Though the galaxy is shrouded in the gas, dust, and stars, Euclid’s near-infrared instrument is able to cut through that material, focusing on the light coming from the galaxy itself.
In the next six years of scientific observation, Euclid will image a region 30,000 times bigger than the one featured in the first image. The VIS instrument’s field of view is larger than the full moon in the night sky.
“This image might look normal, as if every telescope can make such an image, but that is not true,” said Leslie Hunt, a Euclid Consortium scientist at the National Institute of Astrophysics in Italy, in an ESA release. “What’s so special here is that we have a wide view covering the entire galaxy, but we can also zoom in to distinguish single stars and star clusters. This makes it possible to trace the history of star formation and better understand how stars formed and evolved over the lifetime of the galaxy.”
