A European observatory
Euclid is an ESA mission with NASA contributions. It launched on a Falcon 9 on 1 July 2023 and observes from an orbit around the Sun–Earth L2 Lagrange point. Its routine survey began in February 2024.
How do we study what we cannot see?
Euclid measures galaxies’ positions and shapes and uses information about their distances. Weak gravitational distortions and the distribution of galaxies help scientists reconstruct how matter is distributed and how the universe has evolved.
From images to data
On 12 November 2026 ESA announced DR1-Foundation, the mission’s first major data release, based on around 13 months of observations. Maps require analysis: images alone are not direct photographs of dark matter.