European Space Agency Euclid telescope discovers new comet during survey mission

The European Space Agency's Euclid space telescope has discovered a new comet, designated C/2026 S1 (Euclid), according to Universe Today. The discovery comes as an unexpected result outside of the observatory's primary science objectives. Universe Today reports conflicting launch dates for the mission, stating in part that the telescope launched in July 2026 and elsewhere that it launched at the beginning of July 2023. [3]

The uncrewed Euclid observatory is conducting a wide survey mission to observe billions of galaxies, Universe Today reported. The primary goal of the mission is to measure cosmic redshifts over 10 billion years of expansion to help scientists better understand dark matter and dark energy. [3]

The comet discovery comes alongside recent operational progress for other major space observatories. As FTMQ Space reported earlier, engineers adjusted a mirror on NASA's uncrewed Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope by one-sixteenth the width of a human hair. Science Daily reported that the Roman Space Telescope exceeded expectations by nearly 30 percent, while FTMQ Space noted this performance boost applied to its Wide Field Instrument image quality beyond initial predictions. [5][8]

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is a NASA infrared observatory named after Nancy Grace Roman, the agency's first chief of astronomy. The spacecraft launched on a trajectory toward a Sun-Earth L2 orbit on 30 August 2026. [7][8]