Paul Borrow-Longain was excited to watch the launch from Kennedy Space Centre of SpaceXs
Falcon 9 Rocket taking Euclid into space. It will now travel approximately one million miles to
Sun-Earth Lagrange point (L)2.

Euclid is a visible to near-infrared space telescope developed by the European Space Agency
(ESA) and the Euclid Consortium. The objective of the Euclid mission is to better understand
dark energy and dark matter by accurately measuring the acceleration of the universe. To achieve
this, the Korsch-type telescope will measure the shapes of galaxies at varying distances from
Earth and investigate the relationship between distance and redshift. Dark energy is generally
accepted as contributing to the increased acceleration of the expanding universe, so understanding
this relationship will help to refine how physicists and astrophysicists understand it.

Euclid’s mission advances and complements ESA’s Planck telescope (2009 to 2013) and The
mission is named after the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid.