We were very lucky to have been invited to join a KS2 zoom call where we met a real life scientist who taught us all about galaxies in the universe, how to spot them and how telescopes are used to find out about dark matter and dark energy.
He told us all about the Euclid telescope mission. He explained how the telescope will hope to uncover the dark side of the cosmos. The dark matter probe will observe billions of galaxies, looking 10 billion light years into the past across more than 1/3 of the sky to create a 3-D map of the universe. Through this, the extent and influence of the dark constituents will be measured to a sharper degree than ever before.
Dark energy and matter have remained a mystery to scientists for decades, their existence only being inferred through the effects they have on visible matter. Dark energy accelerates the expansion of the universe, whereas dark matter controls the growth of cosmic structures. This has raised a number of questions regarding such components, which make up a substantial proportion of the universe, such as how did the early universe grow? How did galaxies come together? Why is the expansion of the universe accelerating?
