PARIS, France - The European Space Agency's Euclid space telescope has discovered its first previously unknown comet.

The comet has been formally designated C/2026 S1 (Euclid). It was identified in routine survey images captured between 16 and 24 September 2026.

Euclid was originally designed to capture stable images of distant galaxies, not moving objects such as comets. Scientists working with the Euclid archive had expected the mission would discover very few comets over its operational life.

This finding suggests the observatory is capable of detecting unknown comets while they are still very far from the Sun.