In an effort to answer one of the most important questions in science, a European space telescope is about to take off from Florida.
To better understand some of the characteristics of 'dark energy' and 'dark matter,' the Euclid mission will create a massive 3D map of the universe.
Together, these phenomena seem to be in charge of shaping and expanding everything we see in the universe.
However, researchers admit that they know very little about them.
Dark matter and energy cannot be directly observed.
According to Prof. Isobel Hook, due to a significant knowledge gap, we are unable to adequately explain our ancestry.
According to the astronomer at Lancaster University in the UK, Euclid's insights will be our best bet for starting down a path of understanding.
It will be comparable to embarking on a ship before everyone knew where land lay in each direction. As she explained to BBC News, "We'll be mapping out the Universe to try to understand where we fit into it and how we got here - how the entire Universe got from the point of the Big Bang to the beautiful galaxies we see around us, the Solar System, and to life.
At 11:11 local time (15:11 GMT/16:11 BST), the Falcon-9 rocket carrying the $1.04 billion (£1.02 billion) Euclid telescope will launch from Cape Canaveral.
On the side of the planet that is away from the Sun, about 1 million kilometers from Earth, Euclid will be sent to an observation position.
The mission has significant scientific and engineering contributions from both NASA and the European Space Agency (Esa), despite being primarily an Esa project.
According to earlier research, dark energy makes up roughly 70% of the universe's total energy, dark matter about 25%, and all of the visible matter, including the sun, planets, stars, gas, and dust, makes up the remaining 5%.
Euclid will carry out a six-year, two-pronged survey to clarify the characteristics of the mysterious 95 percent.
The distribution of dark matter, which cannot be directly seen but is known to exist due to its gravitational effects on the visible matter, will be mapped as one of the most important tasks.
For instance, galaxies would not be able to maintain their shape without some additional "scaffolding". Whatever dark matter is, that is what this is thought to be.
Despite the fact that this material cannot be seen directly, the telescope can map its distribution by observing the subtle distortions caused by its mass in the light from distant galaxies. Famously, the Hubble Space Telescope pioneered this for a small area of the sky—just two square degrees.
A little more than a third of the heavens, or 15,000 square degrees, will be covered by Euclid.
The telescope's VIS, or visible, camera, which was developed with British leadership, will be at the center of everything.
Prof. Mark Cropper of UCL's Mullard Space Science Laboratory said, "The images it will produce will be enormous.". "To actually display just one image, you'd need more than 300 high-definition TVs. ".
Dark matter is one idea, while dark energy is another.
This enigmatic "force" seems to be speeding up the universe's expansion. Three scientists received the 1998 Nobel Prize for recognizing its existence and impact.
By mapping the three-dimensional distribution of galaxies, Euclid will analyze the phenomenon.
As a sort of "yardstick," the patterns in the vast spaces that separate these objects can be used to gauge their expansion over time.
Again, this has been accomplished by ground-based surveys for relatively small areas of the sky; Euclid, however, will determine the precise locations of about two billion galaxies up to a distance of about 10 billion light-years from Earth.
Then, says Surrey University Professor Bob Nichol, "we can ask some interesting questions.".
Currently, we sort of average everything we measure, so the question is, "Is the acceleration the same throughout the Universe? But what if the acceleration there differs from the acceleration here? That would be discovery science, he said, according to BBC News.
Euclid won't be able to say with certainty, "This is the nature of dark matter and dark energy," but it can help to focus the models and hypotheses that are currently permeating the minds of scientists. Theorists and experimenters will pay more attention to it.
It might offer some new perspectives, for instance, on how to find the particles that are currently believed to make up the majority of dark matter. Every search to this point has turned up nothing.
Regarding dark energy, Euclid may inform scientists that a modified theory of gravity offers a better explanation than their current best guess, which is that this unidentified force is an intrinsic property of space's vacuum. Discovery science would also apply here.
According to Prof. Mark McCaughrean, Esa's senior advisor for science and exploration, one theory holds that dark energy is actually a fifth force, a brand-new force in the Universe that operates only on enormous scales and has no impact on life on Earth.
But of course, how far the universe will expand, whether it will continue expanding at an exponential rate forever or whether it will eventually contract back down, will have a significant impact on the universe's future. ".
