Consortium delivers VIS camera to ESA Euclid mission

Once Euclid is launched from French Guiana in 2022, the visible imager (VIS) instrument will capture light from distant galaxies, providing a more detailed look at the visible universe over a larger part of the sky than previously possible.

Airbus reports progress on Euclid space telescope

According to UCL, Euclid has a 1.2m mirror telescope designed to work at visible and near-infrared wavelengths. It will collect light from distant cosmic objects and feed it into VIS and another instrument, the Near Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer (NISP).

Now that the instruments have been delivered to Airbus, they will be integrated with the telescope and the rest of the payload module over the course of several months.

Euclid will survey the shapes of galaxies and map the geometry of the Universe with the aim of making accurate measurements of mysterious Dark Matter and Dark Energy, which make up most of the cosmos. No-one yet knows what Dark Energy is, but Euclid will be a powerful tool for astronomers looking to find out.