Euclid telescope maps Milky Way centre with 26-hour mosaic, supports gravitational microlensing planet detections (esa.int)

• Euclid mosaic of the Milky Way centre covers tens of millions of stars in 26 hours of observations.
• Released three years after launch; shows star-forming dark clouds and ancient bulge populations.
• Gravitational microlensing in dense star fields can reveal exoplanets and their masses.
• Euclid's primary dark matter/dark energy mission now also supports galactic planet surveys.

"ESA's Euclid space telescope has produced a mosaic of the Milky Way's centre containing tens of millions of stars, assembled from observations taken over 26 hours. Released three years after launch, the image spans star-forming dark clouds and ancient stellar populations in the galactic bulge. The dense star field is expected to support searches for exoplanets through gravitational microlensing, in which a foreground star's gravity briefly magnifies the light of a background star; the resulting light curve reveals a planet's presence and mass. Euclid was designed primarily to study dark matter and dark energy, but this observation extends its role to surveying our own galaxy."