The European Space Agency's Euclid space telescope has made headlines by releasing its first data on March 19, 2025, unveiling a staggering 26 million galaxies as part of its mission to investigate dark matter and dark energy.

This initial data release covers 63 square degrees of the sky, with ambitious plans to eventually survey one-third of the sky, or 14,000 square degrees, in high detail.

The analysis of these images is significantly enhanced by ZooBot, an AI tool trained by nearly 10,000 volunteers from the Galaxy Zoo citizen science project, which helps in recognizing galaxy features.

Project scientist Valeria Pettorino highlighted the exceptional quality of data obtained from just one week of observations, which will be pivotal for various astronomical studies.

Equipped with a high-resolution camera for visible light and a near-infrared camera, the telescope benefits from contributions by the Max Planck Institutes in Germany.

The collaboration between AI algorithms and human volunteers has notably accelerated the data analysis process, leading to rapid scientific discoveries compared to traditional methods.

Ismael Tereno from the IA noted that these observations represent the largest contiguous area of the sky ever captured by a space telescope in the optical/near-infrared domain.

Researchers from the Universities of Oxford, Portsmouth, and Newcastle have successfully identified 500 candidates for gravitational lenses in the data, expanding the known total to less than 1,000.

The first data release provides valuable insights into the large-scale organization of galaxies, contributing to our understanding of galaxy formation throughout cosmic history.

Despite representing less than 0.5% of the total data Euclid will eventually gather, this initial release already presents significant research opportunities.

A third instrument, a photometer, measures the redshift of light emitted by galaxies, providing crucial information about their distances.

The telescope is projected to collect 200 times more data than previous missions, fundamentally transforming our knowledge of galaxy evolution and the structure of the universe.