The largest digital camera ever built has released its first glamour shots of the universe
The observatory's first look features the vibrant Trifid and Lagoon nebulas located thousands of light-years from Earth. A light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles. A gaggle of galaxies known as the Virgo Cluster were also captured, including two bright blue spirals.
The observatory hopes to image 20 billion galaxies and discover new asteroids and other celestial objects.
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The effort is named after astronomer Vera Rubin, who offered the first tantalizing evidence that a mysterious force called dark matter might be lurking in the universe. Researchers hope the observatory's discerning camera may yield clues about this elusive entity along with another called dark energy.
This image provided by the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory shows 678 separate images taken by the observatory in just over seven hours of observing time.
Uncredited/Associated Press
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New York Post
36 minutes ago
- New York Post
New Vera Rubin Observatory discovers 2,000 unknown asteroids within 10 hours
While about 20,000 previously unknown asteroids are discovered every year by telescopes around the world and spacecraft in orbit, the first images by the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory revealed 2,000 undiscovered asteroids taken during about 10 hours of scanning the night sky. There are dozens of telescopes on Earth and satellites in the sky searching for new objects that might pose a threat to our planet. The National Science Foundation-Department of Energy's Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile was not built to be an all-in-one asteroid detector. Advertisement Still, as a fast-moving, machine-learning facility, the observatory is the most effective at spotting interstellar objects passing through the solar system, according to the NSF. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory took two decades to complete and was named after the American astronomer credited with the first evidence of dark matter. Later this year, work will begin creating the largest astronomical movie yet of the Southern Hemisphere, known as the Legacy Survey of Space and Time, using a camera of the same name. The LSST Camera is the largest digital camera in the world with a field of view of about 45 times the area of the full Moon in the night sky. One image would need 400 Ultra HD TV screens to display. Advertisement 5 The first images by the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory revealed 2,000 undiscovered asteroids taken in just 10 hours. 5 This image provided by the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory shows 678 separate images taken by the observatory in just over seven hours of observing time. AP On Monday, the Rubin team revealed the first images taken by the observatory, including parts of the Milk Way and beautiful spiral galaxies. Among the first images were more than 2,000 asteroids, including seven near-Earth asteroids previously undocumented in NASA's Small-Body Database. A timelapse video shows how the Observatory's powerful camera tracked the moving dots in the sky. On night one, nearly 1,000 asteroids were found. Advertisement 5 Authorities and scientists attend a simultaneous conference with the United States, after the first images of deep space captured by the Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile were revealed, in Santiago on June 23, 2025. AFP via Getty Images 5 A drone view of NSFâDOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory during the First Look observing campaign. RubinObs/NOIRLab/SLAC/NSF/DOE/AURA/T. Matsopoulos 5 This image provided by the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory shows a small section of the observatory's total view of the Virgo cluster. AP By the end of a week of observations lasting a few hours each night, the observatory had found more than 2,100 never-before-seen in our solar system in just a fraction of the night sky it will eventually scan. Advertisement These new asteroids, including seven near-Earth asteroids, pose no danger to our planet. According to the NSF, Rubin will discover millions of new asteroids within the first two years of observations.
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory will help astronomers investigate dark matter, continuing the legacy of its pioneering namesake
Everything in space – from the Earth and Sun to black holes – accounts for just 15% of all matter in the universe. The rest of the cosmos seems to be made of an invisible material astronomers call dark matter. Astronomers know dark matter exists because its gravity affects other things, such as light. But understanding what dark matter is remains an active area of research. With the release of its first images this month, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory has begun a 10-year mission to help unravel the mystery of dark matter. The observatory will continue the legacy of its namesake, a trailblazing astronomer who advanced our understanding of the other 85% of the universe. As a historian of astronomy, I've studied how Vera Rubin's contributions have shaped astrophysics. The observatory's name is fitting, given that its data will soon provide scientists with a way to build on her work and shed more light on dark matter. From its vantage point in the Chilean Andes mountains, the Rubin Observatory will document everything visible in the southern sky. Every three nights, the observatory and its 3,200 megapixel camera will make a record of the sky. This camera, about the size of a small car, is the largest digital camera ever built. Images will capture an area of the sky roughly 45 times the size of the full Moon. With a big camera with a wide field of view, Rubin will produce about five petabytes of data every year. That's roughly 5,000 years' worth of MP3 songs. After weeks, months and years of observations, astronomers will have a time-lapse record revealing anything that explodes, flashes or moves – such as supernovas, variable stars or asteroids. They'll also have the largest survey of galaxies ever made. These galactic views are key to investigating dark matter. Deep field images from the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope and others have visually revealed the abundance of galaxies in the universe. These images are taken with a long exposure time to collect the most light, so that even very faint objects show up. Researchers now know that those galaxies aren't randomly distributed. Gravity and dark matter pull and guide them into a structure that resembles a spider's web or a tub of bubbles. The Rubin Observatory will expand upon these previous galactic surveys, increasing the precision of the data and capturing billions more galaxies. In addition to helping structure galaxies throughout the universe, dark matter also distorts the appearance of galaxies through an effect referred to as gravitational lensing. Light travels through space in a straight line − unless it gets close to something massive. Gravity bends light's path, which distorts the way we see it. This gravitational lensing effect provides clues that could help astronomers locate dark matter. The stronger the gravity, the bigger the bend in light's path. For centuries, astronomers tracked and measured the motion of planets in the solar system. They found that all the planets followed the path predicted by Newton's laws of motion, except for Uranus. Astronomers and mathematicians reasoned that if Newton's laws are true, there must be some missing matter – another massive object – out there tugging on Uranus. From this hypothesis, they discovered Neptune, confirming Newton's laws. With the ability to see fainter objects in the 1930s, astronomers began tracking the motions of galaxies. California Institute of Technology astronomer Fritz Zwicky coined the term dark matter in 1933, after observing galaxies in the Coma Cluster. He calculated the mass of the galaxies based on their speeds, which did not match their mass based on the number of stars he observed. He suspected that the cluster could contain an invisible, missing matter that kept the galaxies from flying apart. But for several decades he lacked enough observational evidence to support his theory. In 1965, Vera Rubin became the first women hired onto the scientific staff at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism in Washington, D.C. She worked with Kent Ford, who had built an extremely sensitive spectrograph and was looking to apply it to a scientific research project. Rubin and Ford used the spectrograph to measure how fast stars orbit around the center of their galaxies. In the solar system, where most of the mass is within the Sun at the center, the closest planet, Mercury, moves faster than the farthest planet, Neptune. 'We had expected that as stars got farther and farther from the center of their galaxy, they would orbit slower and slower,' Rubin said in 1992. What they found in galaxies surprised them. Stars far from the galaxy's center were moving just as fast as stars closer in. 'And that really leads to only two possibilities,' Rubin explained. 'Either Newton's laws don't hold, and physicists and astronomers are woefully afraid of that … (or) stars are responding to the gravitational field of matter which we don't see.' Data piled up as Rubin created plot after plot. Her colleagues didn't doubt her observations, but the interpretation remained a debate. Many people were reluctant to accept that dark matter was necessary to account for the findings in Rubin's data. Rubin continued studying galaxies, measuring how fast stars moved within them. She wasn't interested in investigating dark matter itself, but she carried on with documenting its effects on the motion of galaxies. Today, more people are aware of Rubin's observations and contributions to our understanding of dark matter. In 2019, a congressional bill was introduced to rename the former Large Synoptic Survey Telescope to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. In June 2025, the U.S. Mint released a quarter featuring Vera Rubin. Rubin continued to accumulate data about the motions of galaxies throughout her career. Others picked up where she left off and have helped advance dark matter research over the past 50 years. In the 1970s, physicist James Peebles and astronomers Jeremiah Ostriker and Amos Yahil created computer simulations of individual galaxies. They concluded, similarly to Zwicky, that there was not enough visible matter in galaxies to keep them from flying apart. They suggested that whatever dark matter is − be it cold stars, black holes or some unknown particle − there could be as much as 10 times the amount of dark matter than ordinary matter in galaxies. Throughout its 10-year run, the Rubin Observatory should give even more researchers the opportunity to add to our understanding of dark matter. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Samantha Thompson, Smithsonian Institution Read more: Dark matter: The mystery substance physics still can't identify that makes up the majority of our universe What is space made of? An astrophysics expert explains all the components – from radiation to dark matter – found in the vacuum of space Researchers dig deep underground in hopes of finally observing dark matter Samantha Thompson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Wisconsin science, industry play critical roles in creating powerful new Rubin Observatory
Light from faraway galaxies can show us what the universe was like billions of years ago. But the movements and mysteries of those galaxies tell physicists that we still don't know what makes up the vast majority of the universe. 'How did it begin? When will it end? What is it made of?' Keith Bechtol, a physics professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison, said these are some of the questions scientists will try to address with a new observatory in Chile featuring the biggest camera ever built. The NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory, funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science, released the first set of images on June 23. The stunning images represent the fruits of a decades-long effort to push the study of the cosmos well past its current limits. Building the Rubin Observatory, which sits on a summit in Chile's Andes Mountain range, spanned three decades and involved parts and people from three continents. Some of the most important support came from Wisconsin. Beginning in October 2025, the Rubin Observatory will embark on the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). Over the next 10 years it will scan the entire Southern Hemisphere sky about 800 times, providing the most detailed look at the universe to date. The plan going forward sounds deceptively simple. Getting to the starting point was anything but that. 'The whole idea for the (Rubin) observatory was so visionary when it was conceived (in the 1990s) that many of the technologies didn't exist at that time' said Bechtol. Bechtol served as the System Verification and Validation Scientist for the international team in charge of the Rubin. He oversaw much of the testing that ensures scientists will reliably get the high-quality data they are seeking. Observatories usually face trade-offs between how big an area they scan, the resolution of the photos they take and how fast they can take them. The scientists designing the Rubin attacked these challenges on all three fronts. The Simonyi Survey Telescope installed uses an innovative mirror system to reflect incoming light onto a camera the size of a car. After scanning one piece of the sky, the whole system rapidly spins to look in a different direction, rotating in coordination with its protective dome while maintaining near perfect alignment of the mirrors. According to Bechtol, displaying one image at full resolution would require enough high-definition TVs to cover a basketball court. The final step in building the Rubin — installing the 80-ton mirror system — was made possible by the Milwaukee-based company PFlow Industries. Pieces of the telescope were assembled at a staging area but needed to be raised five stories to be installed in the dome. PFlow custom-built a lift capable of moving critical equipment from the assembly area to the dome. A video shared by Rubin Observatory shows this lift in action. During and after construction, Bechtol organized a series of 'rehearsals' to simulate how the Rubin will operate. He accounted for details including the workflow of operating it, the challenge of transferring massive amounts of data from the summit, and even making sure the summit hotel was staffed and had food for its residents. After nearly 30 years of dreaming, designing, building and testing, the first images from Rubin Observatory arrived. UW-Madison hosted a First Look Party on June 23 to view these images with the public. Nearly 100 people gathered in a physics department auditorium to watch a livestream of a press conference in Washington, D.C., before participating in a panel discussion with Bechtol and other scientists who will use data from the Rubin. Even though Monday was the first chance for the public to see the images, some of the scientists involved in the project had a sneak peek. 'I woke up in bed and saw messages' that the first images had come in, said Miranda Gorsuch, a graduate student at UW-Madison who has Bechtol as an advisor. 'It was like waking up from a dream.' Gorsuch plans to use the data to study the structure of the universe and how it evolves over time. Rubin Observatory is named after Vera C. Rubin, an astronomer who first provided observations suggesting we might not be able to see most of the matter making up the universe. Understanding the properties of this 'dark matter' is one of the top priorities for scientists who will use the collected data. But there is so much more to learn; the Rubin is already showing outer space in incredible detail. Just one small slice of our solar system imaged by Rubin Observatory already led to the discovery of 2,000 new asteroids. In one image of the full field of view, scientists detected 10 million galaxies — many for the first time. By repeatedly scanning the sky, scientists hope to use the Rubin as an alert system for rare events, like supernovae, which they can then observe in more focused follow-up studies. 'This is when science works best – when you have this interplay' between new discoveries and the new questions they raise, Bechtol said. 'There's a science case (for building the Rubin), but any time you do this, there is also a set of questions you haven't thought to ask yet' said Eric Wilcots, dean of the College of Letters and Science at UW-Madison. While UW-Madison was just one of many universities involved in the international project, Wilcots believes its participation will inspire future scientists and attract them to Wisconsin. Both Bechtol and Wilcots stressed the importance of sustained financial support from the NSF and DOE to bring the project to fruition. Rob Morgan was one of the first graduate students advised by Bechtol, working on a Dark Energy Survey that served as a precursor to Rubin Observatory. According to Morgan, the Rubin is the culmination of the astronomy field's shift towards a 'big data' approach. Now, Morgan applies the skills he learned as an astrophysicist to his work at Google's office in Madison. 'Google is where 'big data' is done for the rest of the world,' said Morgan. This week's image release represented a beginning. Scientists will spend years collecting and analyzing data. Still, the opening provided a moment worth cherishing. 'We don't get a lot of observatory openings,' said Alyssa Jankowski, who recently completed an undergraduate degree at UW-Madison. 'It's important to celebrate.' This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin science, industry help create new international observatory
