Euclid Telescope Captures Largest Visible-Light Image of Milky Way Bulge

The European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope captured the largest and most detailed visible-light image yet obtained of the Milky Way’s galactic bulge. The mosaic contains more than 60 million stars along with nebulae and star clusters. Euclid turned its visible-light camera toward the region on March 23, 2025, and completed the observations in 26 hours.

The final image is assembled from nine separate pointings, each covering an area larger than the full moon and 270 times the field of view of the Hubble Space Telescope. Jean-Philippe Beaulieu, who led the observing campaign, said the crowded stellar field near the galactic center is well suited for detecting exoplanets through gravitational microlensing.

The image already includes 51 known planetary systems.

Natalia Rektsini, who led publication of the data, noted that the observations provide a reference archive for future microlensing events. She said Euclid captured the stars that the Nancy Grace Roman space telescope, scheduled to launch later in 2025, will later observe when alignments occur.

Valeria Pettorino, ESA’s Euclid project scientist, said the data set can also be applied to studies of brown dwarfs, binary stars, stellar motions, and galactic dust.

The same image would require roughly 2,000 hours of observing time at the Keck Observatory. The image was first published by WIRED Italia and translated from Italian.