Since its launch in 2023, the Euclid space telescope has been sending images of the night sky back to scientists around the world, who combine its observations with data from telescopes on Earth, including the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy’s Pan-STARRS Telescopes on Haleakalā.
The Euclid space mission is an imaging survey of an extremely large swath of the night sky, with the goals of creating a map of the large-scale structure of the universe in 3D, as well as exploring the nature and evolution of dark energy. But space telescopes like Euclid rarely work alone — their observations are almost always done in partnership with ground-based telescopes, like those on Maunakea and Haleakalā.
Hawaiʻi telescopes and Euclid
Pan-STARRS is one of four Hawaiʻi-based telescopes working with Euclid to search for some of the earliest objects in the universe and build a richer picture of the deep sky. The collaboration also includes the W.M. Keck Observatory, Subaru Telescope and Canada-France-Hawaiʻi Telescope on Maunakea.
The ground-based telescopes complement, enhance or further explore Euclid’s data, adding wavelengths, colors and detail that the space telescope is not equipped to do alone.
“It’s very common for a space telescope to discover something interesting in the sky but not have the capability or size to characterize it more thoroughly,” said John O’Meara, chief scientist and deputy director at W.M. Keck Observatory.
