The Swiss-funded Euclid telescope has taken off and achieved orbit after a successful launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The two-ton telescope has been built to create a 3D map of the universe, which should make it possible to observe and analyse extremely distant galaxies.
Institutions in Switzerland stumped up 24 million francs for the space mission. The space telescope itself was launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which took off at 11.12am Florida time on July 1.
Now in orbit, the satellite will trace a map of the universe, looking at galaxies as far as 10 billion light-years away. The telescope will collect large amounts of information as part of the mission, sending around 1.024 terabytes (more than a petabyte) of data back to Earth.
Many Swiss universities and research institutions were involved in the design of the telescope. Some notable Swiss institutions that worked on the project include the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW), the Space Affairs Division of the Swiss government, the University of Geneva, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) and the University of Zurich.
The Euclid space telescope will link its data to other similar missions, creating a huge dataset about parts of space researchers want to better understand. In total, 150 petabytes of data will be collected and linked by Euclid satellites - approximately the same amount of data as in 12 million years worth of HD video.
Image: Shutterstock.com / Nadezda Murmakova