Unveiling the Universe’s Dark Side: Prof. Henk Hoekstra on Euclid’s Mission

Only a week after the ESA released the first stunning images of the universe captured by the space observatory Euclid, Prof. Dr. Henk Hoekstra—the cosmology coordinator for the mission—gave a special lecture to the EnduroSat team at our headquarters in Sofia. The topic of his talk was “Euclid: Revealing the Dark Side of the Universe.”

We discussed the potential of Euclid, tasked to create the largest cosmic 3D map ever. Over the next six years, Euclid will observe the shapes, distances, and motions of billions of galaxies up to 10 billion light-years away.

Prof. Hoekstra, who is a Professor IN Observational Cosmology at Leiden University, has dedicated years of his career to the mission and witnessed its launch from Cape Canaveral in July 2023. We spoke with Prof. Hoekstra about the dark side of the universe and the potential of Euclid, which he describes as “the next big step forward in our quest to try to understand the universe.”