People left speechless after astronomers release insane first photos of the map of the universe

People have been left in awe after astronomers released the first images from a massive new map of the universe.

Space is undeniably huge but that doesn't stop scientists and astronomers from trying to discover and chart as much of the known universe as possible.

One of the most ambitious efforts aiming to do this is the Euclid telescope, which has been busy mapping a 3D picture of the universe since it launched into orbit in July 2023. NASA has also been involved in the project.

Now, a little over a year later, the first photos have been shared with the public - and they’ve blown people away.

People were stunned at the breathtaking images (ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA/CEA Paris-Saclay/JC Cuillandre/E Bertin/G Anselmi/PA Wire / ESA)

Even though the images represent just a small slice of the overall map, they reveal the breathtaking scale and depth of what lies beyond our planet Earth.

According to the European Space Agency's (ESA) website, the small patch explored by the telescope is home to '100 million sources' which involves stars from both our Milky Way and distant galaxies.

When looking at the image, ESA said regions of light blue that can be seen in the mosaic were galactic cirrus clouds that sit between stars in the Milky Way.

The wispy clouds that are composed of gas and dust can reflect optical light, and this allows them to be captured by the mission’s super-sensitive visible light camera.

Professor Mat Page, of the Mullard space science laboratory at University College London (UCL), who leads Euclid’s VIS (visible instrument) camera at University College London, said that before Euclid no one had ever made an image of such a large area of sky at such high resolution.

The newly released mosaic covers just 1% of what the final map will include (ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA/CEA Paris-Saclay/JC Cuillandre/E Bertin/G Anselmi/PA Wire / ESA)

“Before Euclid, we would never be able to see the faint cirrus clouds in the Milky Way, and pick out every star that’s illuminating them in super-high resolution.

“And this is just a tiny fraction of the full area that Euclid is going to survey, so by the end we’ll have a real astronomical harvest of discoveries.”

He added: “Even the zoomed-in images don’t show the full resolution of Euclid’s spectacular VIS camera."

And this is just the beginning.

The newly released mosaic is made up of 208 gigapixels and covers only 1% of what the final map will include.

In fact, the completed map is expected to involve six years of observations and will take in a third of the sky. The observations are expected to capture billions of galaxies out to 10 billon light years.