Euclid

A space mission to map the Dark Universe

Euclid Cosmology Mission is the next cosmology satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA). The main object of Euclid is to solve the mystery of dark energy – why is the expansion of the universe accelerating? Dark energy represents around 75 % of the energy content of the Universe today, and together with dark matter it dominates the Universes' matter-energy content. Both are mysterious and of unknown nature, but control the past, present and future evolution of the Universe.

Euclid is a wide-field space telescope that, in the course of six years, will photograph over a third of the sky and produce a 3-dimensional map of the universe, the distribution of galaxies and dark matter.

One of the EUCLID Science Data Centers will be located in Finland as a collaboration between several Finnish Universities and CSC, and led by the University of Helsinki.

"Data-intensive computing is a fast-growing method in science. Hosting this Science Data Center allows CSC to provide important customized services in data-intensive computing to the Euclid community", Director Janne Ignatius from CSC states.

The launch of the Euclid Satellite is planned for 2022. Euclid will explore how the Universe evolved over the past 10 billion years to address questions related to fundamental physics and cosmology and on the nature and properties of dark energy, dark matter and gravity. Euclid will also provide insightful information on the physics of the early universe and on the initial conditions which seed the formation of cosmic structure.

This project has received funding from the Research Council of Finland​​​​​​​.