The European Space Agency (ESA) has released a stunning new image of the Milky Way captured by its Euclid mission.
The image, which has had color added from ground-based observations, reveals a region near the galactic center — a area that NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will observe repeatedly in the years ahead.
Euclid compiled the image from a series of nine individual snapshots taken over the course of a single day. The resolution of this view is comparable to what Roman will achieve, though it is shallower and lacks some spectral coverage.
A View Through the Galactic Plane
On the right side of the frame, Euclid peers through the dense foreground of the Milky Way’s galactic plane. Here, thick molecular clouds appear as dark patches, obscuring large portions of the galactic bulge beyond.
Toward the left, the view rises to higher galactic latitudes, where the yellow glow of the bulge becomes progressively clearer. In this region, the foreground clouds are fewer and more isolated, allowing the starlight to shine through with less interruption.
Credits
ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, CFHT, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre and E. Bertin (CEA Paris-Saclay).