The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, located atop a mountain in the Chilean Andes, boasts the largest digital camera ever built for astronomy. The telescope, operated by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Energy (DOE), will use this 3.2-gigapixel camera, which is the size of a car, to capture ultra-high-resolution images and video of space. During the event on Monday, NSF and DOE will showcase the first Rubin images to the public and show one of the observatory’s high-resolution “movies” of the visible sky, shot in slow motion.
You can take part in the event by connecting to the live stream or attending one of the in-person screenings at museums, universities and planetariums around the world. The Observatory will begin live streaming the event at 11 a.m. ET and you can watch it here. You can also use the interactive map on the observatory’s website to find a viewing party near you.
More than two decades after the Rubin Observatory was first conceived in a sketch on the back of a napkin, the construction of this enormous telescope is finally nearing completion. Monday’s event marks the beginning of the observatory’s ambitious scientific activities. Later this year, Rubin will launch the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), an unprecedented ten-year survey of the night sky.
The result will be 60 petabytes of data that will help scientists uncover the true nature of dark matter and dark energy, catalog the solar system, study the changing sky, and understand the structure and function of our Milky Way galaxy. Rubin will use its 27.6-foot (8.4-meter) Simonyi Survey telescope – whose unique three-mirror design includes the largest convex mirror ever created – to observe the cosmos on an automated schedule. Each 30-second exposure will cover an area approximately 45 times the size of the full Moon. The huge LSST camera will take wide-angle images and stitch them together to create a complete picture of the southern sky every three nights.
Special computer tools will process Rubin’s data in real time and issue global alerts about changes in the sky within minutes of their detection. The observatory’s findings will be collected in a huge archive, which will significantly increase the amount of data available to scientists.
Researchers led by astronomer Meg Schwamb of Queen’s University Belfast recently estimated that Ruby could triple the number of known near-Earth objects (NEOs) from about 38,000 to 127,000, detect ten times as many trans-Neptunian objects as are currently catalogued, and provide colorful, detailed observations of more than 5 million main-belt asteroids – up from about 1.4 million. Papers describing these predictions and the software Schwamb and her colleagues developed to make them, called Sorcha, are now available on the arXiv preprint server.
“With this data, we will be able to update the textbooks on the formation of the solar system and greatly improve our ability to detect – and potentially deflect – asteroids that could threaten Earth,” said Mario Juric, a team member and astronomer at the University of Washington, in a university statement.
In many ways, the Rubin Observatory will continue the legacy of its namesake, astronomer Vera Rubin. Her work helped prove the existence of dark matter, a discovery that changed the paradigm of astronomy. In addition, she has published more than 100 scientific papers, conducted groundbreaking research on spiral galaxies and galaxy rotation, and has become a pioneer for women in science. Like the astronomer Rubin, the Rubin Observatory will help usher in a new era of research and discovery in this field.
With its state-of-the-art capabilities, Rubin’s first images are sure to be spectacular. Monday’s event is just the beginning of this observatory’s mission to map the cosmos in unprecedented detail, opening up new possibilities for understanding the mysteries of the universe.
