AI Insight
ESA's Euclid space telescope has captured an unprecedented mosaic of the Milky Way's galactic center, imaging tens of millions of stars in just 26 hours of observation time. The detailed imagery reveals stellar populations at various evolutionary stages, from star-forming dark clouds to ancient stars in the galactic bulge. The data enables astronomers to use gravitational microlensing techniques to detect hidden exoplanets by measuring temporary brightness changes when stars align, allowing planet detection and mass determination through gravitational effects alone.
Why it matters
This demonstrates that Euclid, originally designed to study dark matter and dark energy, can effectively serve as a powerful tool for exoplanet discovery through gravitational microlensing. The telescope's capability to map dense stellar fields opens new opportunities for detecting planets that cannot be observed through direct imaging methods, potentially revealing thousands of previously unknown worlds in our galaxy.
Understand the Science
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Millions of stars. Thousands of hidden worlds. One unprecedented view of our galaxy.
Three years since launch, ESA’s Euclid space telescope reveals the Milky Way galaxy’s centre in extraordinary detail: a mosaic of tens of millions of stars captured in just 26 hours.But this is more than an image. It is a map of stellar evolution, from dark clouds where stars are being born to ancient populations packed into the galactic bulge.
And hidden within this dense field of light are planets we cannot see directly.
Through gravitational microlensing, astronomers detect distant worlds by measuring tiny, temporary changes in light as stars pass in front of one another, revealing planets and even their masses through gravity alone.
Euclid, originally built to explore dark matter and dark energy, is now helping open a new window on our own galaxy, and the unseen worlds within it.
Source: Thousands of planets are hidden in this photo