The European Space Agency’s Euclid spacecraft has successfully completed its ocean cruise and arrived safely at Port Canaveral in Florida. The satellite was then transported to the Astrotech facility near Cape Canaveral, where it will undergo testing of its subsystems over the next month. Once the final checks are complete, Euclid will be mounted on top of its launch vehicle in preparation for its journey to the Sun-Earth Lagrange point L2.
Euclid is set to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in July and will travel 1.5 million km to map billions of galaxies across more than one third of the sky. The mission’s goal is to uncover the mysteries of the “dark” Universe, which makes up more than 95% of the mass and energy in our Universe.
While astronomers have long studied luminous sources such as planets, stars, galaxies, and gas, these objects make up only a small fraction of what the Universe contains. The remaining 95% is made up of unknown “dark” matter and energy, which do not emit, absorb, or reflect any light. Scientists estimate that dark matter makes up 25% of the Universe and dark energy 70%, and understanding their nature is one of the most compelling challenges of cosmology and fundamental physics today.
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