Project Description
Euclid Mission:
The Euclid observations cover 15.000 deg2 of the extragalactic sky and are complemented by two 20 deg2 deep field observations. For the weak lensing investigations Euclid will provide measurements of the form of 30 high resolved galaxies per arcmin2 in R+I+Z-band (550-920nm). They are obtained from the NIR-bands (Y, J, H in the range 0.92-2.0 micrometer). Additional data sets are provided by earth-bound observations such as DES, KiDS and Pan-STARRS.
The BAOs are determined via spectroscopic observations with a redshift accuracy of ≤0.001. The spectrometer mainly observes H-alpha galaxies. The limitated flux corresponds to 3·10-16 erg s-1 cm-2, which results in over 50 million galaxy redshifts with a completeness larger than 45%.
The deep survey is two magnitudes deeper with respect to the wide survey. This is required for the spectroscopic calibration and is inimitable.
Euclid will be launched in 2020 using a Soyuz ST-2.1B-rocket. It will take ~30 days to reach the second Lagrange point of the earth-sun system, where it will in total observe six years to achieve all planned measurements. The corresponding data processing and calibration will take additional 3-6 months. The image quality is guaranteed with observations of the sky using circles with constant solar angles. Possible variations of angles between different fields are limited to a maximum of 5 deg, to allow for the best thermal stability. The scientific data of the satellite will be received and processed with a rate of 850 Gbit/day by several ground stations.
MPE Contribution:
The Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) is responsible for the overall optical design of the near-infrared instrument, in particular it procures all lenses and their mounts and performs the corresponding functionality tests. In addition to the hardware development, MPE is involved in the scientific data processing of the mission. LMU is co-leading the preparation of ground-based complementary data and their merging with the Euclid visual and infrared data. Both institutes are represented in several science working groups, in the Euclid Consortium Board and the ESA Science Team.