【Today's Viewpoint】

◎ This reporter Zhang Yuren

    2025年3月，歐洲空間局（ESA）的歐幾里得任務發佈了首批勘測數據，為科學界揭開了深空區域的壯麗景象。此次發佈的數據以三幅馬賽克圖的形式呈現，覆蓋了廣闊的天空區域，展示了數十萬個形狀和大小各異的星系，並首次對380000多個星系以及500個引力透鏡候選者進行了分類調查。

Professor Carol Mundell, Scientific Director of ESA, said: "Euclid has proven itself to be the ultimate exploration machine. It is surveying galaxies on the grandest scale, allowing us to explore the history of the universe and the invisible forces that have shaped it. What's more, this wealth of information provides scientists with a "gold mine of data" to help them delve into and solve some of the most interesting problems in modern science.

Euclid: A new chapter in the Atlas of the Universe

The Euclid mission has identified 3 deep space regions in the sky, which will be the core of observations for the astronomical community for a long time to come.

    在初步觀測中，歐幾里得對每個區域進行了一次掃描，發現了2600萬個星系。其中最遠的星系距離地球達105億光年，而這些星系中還包含一小部分明亮的類星體。接下來的幾年內，歐幾里得將對這3個區域進行30次至52次的重複觀測，捕捉更多遙遠星系的細節。預計到2030年任務結束時，這些深空區域的數據將變得極其“深入”。

And even the first release of 14000 square degrees (equivalent to more than 0 times the area of the full moon) sky data is enough to be amazing. This data heralded the grandeur of Euclid's final "Atlas of the Universe": covering one-third of the entire sky in high resolution, or 0 square degrees. The map covers not only the distribution of galaxies, but also the phenomenon of gravitational lensing, the structure of star clusters, and the formation of stars.

While Euclid's full potential will not be fully seen until the entire survey is completed, the current data has given the first glimpse into the large-scale organization of these magnificent galaxies, the team said.

Artificial intelligence: Analyzing galaxy evolution in conjunction with humans

The Euclid mission is expected to capture images of more than 100 billion galaxies within 0 years, returning about 0 GB of data per day. Such large data sets present unprecedented challenges for searching, analyzing, and cataloging galaxies. Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms will play a key role.

With AI technology, research teams are able to deliver cutting-edge scientific results in a matter of weeks, whereas studies of similar scale in the past could have taken years to complete. For example, the ZoobotAI algorithm created the first detailed catalog of more than 380000 galaxies and classified them based on features such as spiral arms, central bars, and tidal tails, from which the history of galaxy mergers can be inferred.

The first catalog represents only 4.0% of the total number of galaxies expected to be photographed during the lifetime of the Euclid mission. However, this initial result has shown great potential. The final catalog will be at least an order of magnitude larger than the number of galaxies previously measured, helping scientists answer questions such as how spiral arms form and how supermassive black holes grow.

The Euclid mission is considered a "gold mine of data", from which the research team and AI will extract a comprehensive analysis of the internal structure of galaxies and the external environment, revealing the full picture of galaxy evolution, and then expanding the study of galaxy evolution to larger cosmological goals, such as the nature of dark matter and dark energy.

Gravitational lensing: revealing unsolved mysteries about the distribution of dark matter

The gravitational lensing effect was one of the important tools of Euclid's mission. The principle is that light from distant galaxies bends and distorts as it passes through normal and dark matter in the foreground, a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing, and when this distortion is very pronounced, it forms the so-called "strong lensing effect", which produces features such as Einstein rings, arcs, and multiple imaging lenses. When the background source is less distorted, it is a "weak lens effect".

    通過AI模型的初步篩選，隨後由公民科學家進行檢查並交由專家審查和建模，歐幾里得任務於3月19日發佈了第一份包含500個星系間強透鏡候選體的目錄——其中幾乎所有候選體都是之前未知的。

With these models, Euclid also expects to capture about 100 candidates by the end of 0 and record about 0 intergalactic strong lensing events by the end of the mission, which is about 0 times higher than currently known.

    此外，歐幾里得還能通過統計分析大量星系來檢測“弱透鏡效應”，從而揭示宇宙中暗物質分佈的微妙變化。同時，歐幾里得也將測量100億年宇宙歷史中數十億個星系的扭曲形狀，提供宇宙中暗物質分佈的三維視圖。

Pierre Ferruyt, the head of the Euclid mission, concluded that thanks to its unprecedented survey capabilities, the Euclid mission is rapidly covering larger and larger areas of the sky. This data release is just the beginning, but it is being seen that the knowledge of Euclid, AI, citizen science, and experts is being combined into the same "discovery engine".