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First images from Euclid are in

(dlmultimedia.esa.int)
544 points mooreds | 2 comments | 21 Oct 24 20:15 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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bbor ◴[21 Oct 24 23:23 UTC] No.41909597[source]▶
Really impressive work, thanks for sharing. The video, that is -- the astronomy is indistinguishable from magic and thus way beyond the reach of words like "impressive", obviously. I do find it a little funny that physics is in such a jam that "look at more stuff" is an important next step, but godspeed nonetheless.

ETA: For those who love space but are similarly OOTL on the specifics of modern missions: this is from a telescope launched to the L2 point (next to Webb!) last July, and is currently a bit over 1/6th of the way through it's expected lifetime.

Details here: https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Euclid... and obv https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclid_%28spacecraft%29

In comparison to Webb, it's focused on ~visible light surveys of the medium to far range, whereas Webb was built for ~infrared investigations of very distant objects. It was budgeted around 1/4th the cost of Webb (and ended up being ~1/20th due to Webb's costs running from $1B to $10B...) See https://www.jameswebbdiscovery.com/other-missions/euclid/euc...

If you're looking for a new wallpaper, it would be hard to beat this 8000x8000 pic it took of the Perseus galaxy cluster, casually depicting 100,000 galaxies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclid_%28spacecraft%29#/media... The discoverer of galaxies, Kant, would literally weep. We're lucky to live when we do!

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1. dylan604 ◴[22 Oct 24 00:36 UTC] No.41910033[source]▶
> I do find it a little funny that physics is in such a jam that "look at more stuff" is an important next step

Observation is the most basic step of science. By viewing, we can find evidence of theoretical concepts or see something that conflicts those theories so they can be discarded or tweaked. It's not like there are experiments that could be used to test theories, so observing is all there is

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2. xipho ◴[22 Oct 24 00:41 UTC] No.41910071[source]▶
Life on Earth is the same. If we are to get off Earth, we need to know what life to bring with us. We need to look a lot more, and much more closely at all the evolutionary products out there to make those decisions (if we arrogant humans can indeed even manage the intricacies of such an endeavor).