WASHINGTON, 24 Jan. 2013. NASA has joined the European Space Agency's (ESA's) Euclid mission to investigate the cosmological mysteries of dark matter and dark energy with a space telescope.
"ESA's Euclid mission is designed to probe one of the most fundamental questions in modern cosmology, and we welcome NASA's contribution to this important endeavor, the most recent in a long history of cooperation in space science between our two agencies," says Alvaro Gimenez, ESA's Director of Science and Robotic Exploration.
Euclid will launch in 2020 and spend six years mapping the locations and measuring the shapes of as many as 2 billion galaxies spread over more than one-third of the sky. It will study the evolution of our universe, and the dark matter and dark energy that influence its evolution in ways that still are poorly understood.
The telescope will launch to an orbit around the sun-Earth Lagrange point L2. The Lagrange point is a location where the gravitational pull of two large masses, the sun and Earth in this case, precisely equals the force required for a small object, such as the Euclid spacecraft, to maintain a relatively stationary position behind Earth as seen from the sun.
According to a signed agreement between NASA and ESA, NASA will contribute 16 state-of-the-art infrared detectors and four spare detectors for one of two science instruments planned for Euclid. In addition, NASA has nominated three U.S. science teams totaling 40 new members for the Euclid Consortium. This is in addition to 14 U.S. scientists already supporting the mission.
"NASA is very proud to contribute to ESA's mission to understand one of the greatest science mysteries of our time," says John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington.
Euclid will use two techniques to study the dark universe, both involving precise measurements of galaxies billions of light-years away. The observations will yield the best measurements yet of how the acceleration of the universe has changed over time, providing new clues about the evolution and fate of the cosmos.
Euclid is an ESA mission with science instruments provided by a consortia of European institutes and with important participation from NASA. The Euclid Consortium is an international body of 1,000 members who will oversee development of the instruments, manage science operations, and analyze data.
NASA's Euclid Project Office is based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. JPL will contribute the infrared flight detectors for the Euclid science instrument. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., will test the infrared flight detectors prior to delivery. Three U.S. science teams will contribute to science planning and data analysis.
