The mission scouted out the three areas in the sky where it will eventually provide the deepest observations of its mission. In just one week of observations, with one scan of each region so far, Euclid already spotted 26 million galaxies. The farthest of those are up to 10.5 billion light-years away. The first glimpse of 63 square degrees of the sky, the equivalent area of more than 300 times the full Moon, already gives an impressive preview of the scale of Euclid’s grand cosmic atlas when the mission is complete. This atlas will cover one-third of the entire sky – 14 000 square degrees – in this high-quality detail.
These first survey data are public and can be used for a variety of purposes in astronomy, from galaxy shapes, to strong lenses, clusters, and star formation. These initial results have also confirmed the mission's instruments are well calibrated and our infrastructure back on Earth is well prepared to receive and process the huge amount of data yet to come. In the coming years, Euclid will pass over these three regions tens of times, capturing many more faraway galaxies, making these fields truly ‘deep’ by the end of the nominal mission in 2030.
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