This is the largest high-resolution photo ever made of the center of our Milky Way galaxy in visible light. (ESA/Euclid/Euclid Cons/NASA/CFHT via SWNS)
By Dean Murray
Space scientists have revealed the largest and most detailed photo ever made of the Milky Way’s center, packed with more than 60 million stars.
The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Euclid mission revealed the visible-light image on Wednesday, June 24.
The Euclid space telescope captured the enormous photo on March 23, 2025, in about 26 hours; a mosaic of nine "pointings" from its visible-light camera, with each pointing covering a patch of sky larger than the full Moon.
ESA says this crowded region of our galaxy is the perfect place for astronomers to search for exoplanets with a technique called microlensing.
This image shows an area of the observations of the galactic bulge, made by the European Space Agency's Euclid space telescope. (ESA/Euclid/Euclid Cons/NASA/CFHT via SWNS)
Microlensing is when a massive object passes in front of a more distant star and its gravity briefly bends and magnifies the star’s light as seen from Earth.
Jean-Philippe Beaulieu of the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris in France and the University of Tasmania in Australia is the original instigator of Euclid’s galactic bulge survey.
He said: "During the last twenty years, almost 300 exoplanets have been discovered using this technique, all with ground-based telescopes and all towards the centre of our galaxy.
"This image from Euclid includes 51 known planetary systems – and it will assist in studying many more that will be found."
Euclid’s observations are a precursor to NASA’s Roman Space Telescope mission, due for launch in mid-2027, which is expected to use microlensing to find even more exoplanets in the same crowded region of the galaxy.
Euclid’s images of the galactic center will help the Roman mission by mapping stars and providing a reference for spotting microlensing events more accurately.
(ESA/Euclid/Euclid Cons/NASA/CFHT via SWNS)
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