The European Space Agency (ESA) Euclid mission is set to launch on 1 July in a quest to answer some of the most fundamental questions about the Universe. This new ESA space telescope comprises two cutting-edge scientific instruments onboard to solve important dark matter and energy mysteries<\/a>, including:<\/p>\n Dark matter and dark energy are recently discovered phenomena that science is yet to understand. Until the last 20 to 30 years, it was believed that the Universe was made up of protons, neutrons and electrons. However, we now know this accounts for only 4% of the Universe’s mass-energy budget.<\/p>\n Dark matter and dark energy are now known to make up the rest of the mass-energy budget, causing the expansion of the Universe to accelerate. However, how dark matter and energy cause this is still unknown, as it cannot be explained by fundamental physics.<\/p>\n The Euclid mission will map the ‘Dark Universe’ to learn about dark energy and matter. The spacecraft will survey the sky to observe billions of galaxies across ten billion years of cosmic history.<\/p>\n Euclid will utilise gravitational lensing and baryonic acoustic oscillation (BAOs) to measure galaxy shapes and distortions to analyse the distribution and evolution of dark energy and matter.<\/p>\n\n
What do we currently know about dark matter and energy?<\/h3>\n
What will the Euclid mission do?<\/h3>\n