SpaceX launches European ‘dark energy telescope’ to help unravel cosmology’s biggest mysteries

The European Space Agency launched its $1.5 billion Euclid space telescope Saturday, an ambitious, first-of-a-kind attempt to pin down the nature of dark matter, an unknown material pervading the cosmos, and dark energy, the mysterious repulsive force that is speeding up the expansion of the universe. “It’s very difficult to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat,” said Henk Hoekstra, an astronomer at the University of Leiden and a member of the Euclid Consortium of researchers. “That’s a little bit the situation we find ourselves in because we have these observations but we lack a good theory. More

(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jul 2)