Euclid data include 900 million galaxies, 15,000 lens candidates

The European Space Agency and the Euclid Consortium made Euclid’s first major data release public on November 12, 2026. Called DR1-Foundation, it includes more than 900 million catalogued galaxies and more than 15,000 strong gravitational-lensing candidates. It is the first part of the mission’s first major release, not the complete data set.

The release brings together about 13 months of observations. It covers roughly 1,900 square degrees of the Euclid Wide Survey, alongside observations from Deep Field and calibration programmes.

Images, catalogues and spectra in the first release i

DR1-Foundation includes images, catalogues, photometric and spectroscopic redshifts, and spectra. The Euclid Consortium reports about 10,000 science images. Other product counts include:

These figures count different kinds of products, not interchangeable measures of one total. The spectra and quasar-candidate counts are reported as more than a stated number; the image count is approximate.

The 1,900-square-degree footprint is about 14% of the sky area planned for Euclid’s six-year mission. That comparison is with the mission’s planned survey area, not 14% of the entire sky. The release therefore represents an early portion of the survey, even though its catalogues already contain hundreds of millions of galaxies.

The lens catalogue is a candidate list i

Does the count of strong gravitational-lensing entries mean Euclid has confirmed that many lenses? No. They are candidates identified in the data, not a tally of confirmed systems. The distinction matters when interpreting the headline figure: the catalogue gives researchers objects to investigate, rather than a final count of verified lenses.

The Euclid Consortium describes the strong-lensing catalogue as the largest homogeneous catalogue of its kind to date. Eight scientific papers accompanied the release, including four presenting results on strong gravitational lensing. The papers and catalogue make lensing a prominent part of this initial data release, alongside its much larger sets of galaxies, spectra and other observations.

Additional cosmology products are due in June 2027 i

DR1-Foundation is not a completed three-dimensional map of the universe. It provides an initial set of observations intended to contribute to Euclid’s eventual map. Researchers can work with the released images, catalogues, redshifts and spectra now, but the foundation release does not include every product planned for the full DR1.

The complete DR1 is scheduled for June 2027. The next part is expected to add weak-lensing measurements and other higher-level products intended for cosmological analyses. That two-part schedule distinguishes the public data available now from the expanded set planned for the mission’s first complete release.