Credit: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, CEA Paris-Saclay

This image shows an area of the mosaic released by ESA’s Euclid space telescope on 15 October 2024. The area is zoomed in 36 times compared to the large mosaic. In this image, the core of galaxy cluster Abell 3381 is visible, 678 million light-years away from us. The image shows many different galaxies of various shapes and sizes, from massive elliptical to modest spiral galaxies, down to tiny and dim dwarf galaxies.

Technical details: This colour image was obtained by combining VIS data and NISP photometry in Y and H bands. VIS and NISP enable observing astronomical sources in four different wavelength ranges. Aesthetics choices led to the selection of three out of these four bands to be cast onto the traditional Red-Green-Blue colour channels used to represent images on our digital screens (RGB). The blue, green, red channels capture the Universe seen by Euclid around the wavelength 0.7, 1.1, and 1.7 micron respectively. In the image, the stars have six prominent spikes due to how light interacts with the optical system of the telescope in the process of diffraction.

Image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre, E. Bertin, G. Anselmi

Provider: Euclid

Image Source: https://euclid.caltech.edu/image/euclid20241015d-euclid-captures-core-of-abell-3381-galaxy-cluster

Curator: Euclid-ESA

Image Use Policy: CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO