Having launched on July 1, 2023 from Cape Canaveral in Florida atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, Euclid is a wide-angle space telescope carrying a 600-megapixel camera that observes the cosmos in visible light, a near-infrared spectrometer and a photometer that is used to determine the redshift of galaxies. Knowing about redshift allows scientists to figure out how fast distant galaxies are moving away from our planet.

Euclid's primary mission is to investigate the universe's two most mysterious elements: dark energy and dark matter. These phenomena collectively make up what's often called the "dark universe."