2026年6月24日 美国东部时间上午7:09 / 哥伦比亚广播公司/法新社
欧洲空间局周三表示，欧几里得太空望远镜拍到了迄今最大、最清晰的银河系拥挤中心区域照片，这张令人惊叹的图像包含了6000万颗恒星。
该机构表示，这张银河系明亮中心的新照片将有助于搜寻太阳系外行星。
参与欧几里得任务的法国天文学家让-夏尔·基约尔对法新社表示：“我们这个螺旋星系的中心存在一个核球——一个包含数十亿颗恒星的巨大气泡。”
欧几里得望远镜于2023年发射升空，任务是绘制三分之一的天空，以期揭开暗物质和暗能量这两大长期未解之谜。
“如今我们决定将欧几里得对准天空中最明亮的区域——结果效果极佳，这太了不起了，”基约尔说道。
欧洲空间局还发布了一段三分钟的视频，展示这批新图像。
这台距离地球930万英里的欧几里得望远镜，于2025年3月通过其可见光相机历时26小时拍摄了这张图像。
这幅拼接图像由九张照片组成，每张照片覆盖的天空面积都大于月球。
信息图详解欧几里得的巡天任务 欧洲空间局
原始拍摄的图像为黑白版本，后来通过位于夏威夷的加拿大-法国-夏威夷望远镜的观测数据为其添加了色彩。
但基约尔强调：“我们拍摄这张照片不仅仅是为了得到一张精美的图像。”
“宇宙放大镜”
近几十年来，科学家们已经确认了数千颗太阳系外行星，也就是系外行星。
欧几里得的这张图像不太可能帮助发现新的系外行星，但它将帮助科学家测算已发现行星以及未来将要发现的行星的质量。
这可以通过一种名为微引力透镜的技术实现，该现象发生在一颗恒星运行至另一颗恒星前方之时。
欧洲空间局在一份声明中解释道：距离较近的恒星就像一个宇宙放大镜，会弯曲并增强背景恒星的光线。
如果有一颗行星围绕这颗较近的恒星运行，行星的引力也会轻微弯曲这束光线。这种微小的亮度变化能让科学家们定位到这颗行星。
“在过去20年里，几乎有300颗系外行星是通过这种技术发现的，所有观测都基于地面望远镜，且都瞄准了银河系中心，”法国天文学家让-菲利普·博勒在声明中说道。
博勒举例说，他在20年前带领团队发现了一颗“有点像《星球大战》里的霍斯星”的冰封行星。
欧几里得的这张新图像“包含了51个已知的行星系统，它将助力研究更多未来将被发现的行星系统”，他补充道。
欧几里得拍摄的银河核球星团 欧洲空间局
2024年，欧几里得拍摄了令人惊叹的宇宙照片，其中包括编号为Abell 2390的巨大星系团图像。这个距离地球27亿光年的星系团图像包含了超过5万个星系。
另一张令人瞠目结舌的照片拍摄于2023年，展现了英仙座星系团的壮观广角视角，揭示了至少1000个受引力束缚的星系，另有约10万个星系散布在更遥远的背景中——其中许多都是此前从未被观测到的。
造价15亿美元的欧几里得望远镜于2023年7月1日搭乘SpaceX猎鹰9号火箭从卡纳维拉尔角发射升空，被部署在距离地球约100万英里的月球轨道外侧位置。
在为期六年的任务周期内，这台天文台将对银河系周围的整片天空进行成像，观测追溯至100亿年前的星系和星系团。
欧几里得拍摄的银河核球影像 欧洲空间局
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DtFRq1cgcc
Telescope captures most detailed image yet of Milky Way’s heart: “Cosmic magnifying glass”
June 24, 2026 7:09 AM EDT / CBS/AFP
The Euclid space telescope has captured the largest and most detailed photo ever taken of our galaxy’s crowded heart, a dazzling image packed with 60 million stars, the European Space Agency said Wednesday.
The new photo of the Milky Way’s bright center will help in the search for planets beyond our Solar System, the agency said.
At the center of our spiral galaxy “lies the bulge — a large bubble containing billions of stars,” French astronomer Jean-Charles Cuillandre, who works on the Euclid mission, told AFP.
Euclid launched in 2023 on a mission to chart one-third of the sky in the hopes of shedding light on the enduring mysteries of dark matter and dark energy.
“Now we’ve decided to point Euclid at the brightest area of the sky — and it works superbly, it’s extraordinary,” Cuillandre said.
The space agency also released a three-minute video highlighting the new images.
Euclid, which is hovering 930,0000 miles from Earth, captured the image with its visible light camera over 26 hours in March 2025.
The mosaic is composed of nine photographs, each covering an area of the sky larger than the Moon.
Infographic explaining Euclid’s survey ESA
The original image was captured in black and white, but color was added using observations from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope located in Hawaii.
However “we didn’t do this just to produce a beautiful image,” Cuillandre emphasised.
“Cosmic magnifying glass”
In recent decades, scientists have identified thousands of planets outside our Solar System, which are known as exoplanets.
New exoplanets are unlikely to be identified within the Euclid image, but it will help the scientists measure the mass of planets already spotted — and those that will be discovered in the future.
It can do this via a process called microlensing, which happens when one star crosses over another.
The closer star “acts like a cosmic magnifying glass, bending and brightening the background star’s light”, the ESA explained in a statement.
If a planet is orbiting the closer star, its gravity also slightly bends this light. This tiny change in brightness allows scientists to track the planet down.
“During the last 20 years, almost 300 exoplanets have been discovered using this technique, all with ground-based telescopes and all towards the centre of our galaxy,” French astronomer Jean-Philippe Beaulieu said in the statement.
For example, Beaulieu said he led the team that discovered an icy planet “a bit like Hoth from Star Wars” 20 years ago.
The new image from Euclid “includes 51 known planetary systems — and it will assist in studying many more that will be found”, he added.
Euclid galactic bulge – star cluster ESA
In 2024, Euclid captured dazzling photos of the cosmos, including an image of a massive cluster of galaxies called Abell 2390. The image of the cluster, which is 2.7 billion light years away from Earth, encompasses more than 50,000 galaxies.
Another jaw-dropping image, captured in 2023, provides a spectacular wide-angle view of the Perseus galaxy cluster, revealing at least 1,000 gravitationally-bound galaxies with another 100,000 or so sprinkled across the more distant background — many of them never before seen.
Launched from Cape Canaveral on July 1, 2023 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the $1.5 billion Euclid is stationed about a million miles from Earth on the far side of the moon’s orbit.
Over the course of its six-year mission, the observatory will image the entire sky around the Milky Way, monitoring galaxies and galaxy clusters dating back 10 billion years.
Euclid’s view of our galactic bulge ESA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DtFRq1cgcc