A "Detailed 3D Map Of The Cosmos": Now Being Downloaded -- To The Public -- By The ESA's Euclid Space Scope Mission...

This is the very best that pure space science can offer: vast troves of high-quality data, driven only by the relentless pursuit of advanced understanding (or "real science", if one prefers) without any concern for political boundries -- on some map, drawn exclusively long ago, by some rather small men.

We -- all of humanity -- will benefit from this magnanimous sharing of data -- by our EU neighbors (my prior backgrounder, here). These are. . . very savvy friends. [Note especially here, the stark contrast, to the largely pin-headed slop -- one Elon Musk tries to sell -- for a profit, to a gullible, largely science-illiterate public.]

Here's the latest, from esa / Euclid mission control:

. . .On 12 November 2026, ESA’s Euclid space telescope released its first major batch of data. This release, named DR1-Foundation, includes data gathered as part of the Euclid Wide and Deep Surveys, and forms the foundation of many forthcoming scientific studies of the Universe. The area of sky covered by each is shown here: the Euclid Wide Survey in light yellow, and Euclid Deep Survey in darker yellow.

These observations were gathered over roughly one year, from spring 2024 to spring 2025. In that time the Euclid Wide Survey covered around 1900 deg2 of sky, as shown here. While very large, this represents just 14% of the mission’s target for the entire six-year survey. (See the full sky footprints for both surveys over Euclid’s lifetime.)

This all-sky view is an overlay of ESA Gaia’s star map from its second data release in 2018 and ESA Planck’s dust map from 2014. . . .

What a wondrous time to be alive -- do remember to send your Morse Code greetings sky-ward at night, too -- to intrepid Voyager (now almost a light day off) all this week, into next: flash "V-G-R" -- or, dot dot dot dash / dash dash dot / dot dash dot. . . over and over, as the 18^th approaches! Woot!

नमस्ते