Euclid Deep Field South – preview

This is Euclid’s Deep Field South. After only one observation, the space telescope already spotted more than 11 million galaxies in this field. In the coming years, Euclid will make more observations of this field to reach its full depth. When looking at the image, a glimpse of the large-scale structure of the Universe can be seen. This is the organisation of galaxies along the so-called ‘cosmic web’. This web consists of huge clusters of galaxies connected to one another by strands of gas and invisible dark matter. Euclid’s Deep Field South covers 28.1 square degrees in the southern constellation of Horologium, the pendulum clock. This field has not been covered to date by any deep sky survey and so has a huge potential for new, exciting discoveries. [Image description: On a black background lies a rectangular shape with stepped edges all around, oriented with its long axis pointing from bottom left to top right. Contained within the shape are more than 11 million galaxies, and stars of various size, brightness and colour. Some galaxies are easily identifiable by their fuzzy elongated shapes. There is a hint of more densely populated regions of galaxies being organised into a web-like structure of filaments that permeates the image.]