Overview
- Euclid captured the mosaic in March 2025 and the processed, colorized image was publicly released in late June 2026, giving scientists a new detailed view of the Galaxy’s center.
- The mosaic resolves more than 60 million stars across roughly five square degrees and was colorized with ground-based CFHT data and processed by teams including J.-C. Cuillandre and E. Bertin.
- Euclid paused its nominal cosmology survey to obtain the multi-pointing visible-light snapshot, which reaches visible-light sharpness comparable to Hubble’s wide-field camera while covering far larger fields per pointing.
- Mission teams plan to combine Euclid’s single-epoch, high-resolution baseline with the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s repeated observations to detect microlensing events and measure the masses of exoplanets and isolated compact objects.
- Beyond planet searches, the image reveals molecular clouds, clusters and dust lanes and will help scientists map stellar motions and interstellar dust and establish a model for future coordinated surveys.