Largest digital camera ever built reveals its first shots of the universe
The largest digital camera ever built released its first shots of the universe on Monday — including colourful nebulas, stars and galaxies.
The Vera C Rubin Observatory, located on a mountaintop in Chile, was built to take a deeper look at the night sky, covering hidden corners.
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Funded by the US National Science Foundation and US Department of Energy, it will survey the southern sky for the next 10 years.
An image provided by the NSF-DOE Vera C Rubin Observatory (NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory via AP)
The observatory's first look features the vibrant Trifid and Lagoon nebulas located thousands of light-years from Earth.
A light-year is nearly six 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 tantalising 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.
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The Independent
40 minutes ago
- The Independent
Biggest digital camera ever built releases stunning pictures of the universe
The most powerful digital camera ever built has released its first pictures of the universe. Beautiful galaxies shine in the images that show a vast picture of colourful nebulae and stars. They come from the Vera C Rubin Observatory, which hopes to be able to continuously monitor the night sky with a view to better understanding the universe and its processes. By watching all the time, scientists hope to be able to create something like a rewindable video of the cosmos. Scientists hope that it can eventually be used to better understand asteroids, find the nature of mysterious dark matter and more. It takes its name from the astronomer whose work offered the first hints of the existence of dark matter. The first images are really intended to show the profound detail of the pictures, however. The camera has 3,200 megapixels – around 70 times that of the latest iPhone – making it precise enough to show a golf ball on the Moon. Scientists hope that detail will allow them to peer deep into the universe. 'The beautiful galaxies in the foreground of this image all live in our immediate cosmic neighbourhood,' said Benjamin Joachimi, from UCL's Department of Physics & Astronomy. 'We are much more excited about the many unassuming small blobs of light filling the background: most of these are also galaxies, just much further away from Earth. Together, they trace the large-scale distribution of matter in the Universe, which is shaped by the properties of dark matter and dark energy.'
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
World's biggest telescope finds 2,000 asteroids in a week
The world's largest digital camera telescope has discovered 2,000 new asteroids, including seven potentially hazardous space rocks that will pass close to Earth. The Vera C Rubin Observatory in Chile released the first images from its 3,200 megapixel camera, which produces images so large they are impossible to see in detail with the human eye. In the first few days of sky scanning, the telescope spotted 2,104 unknown asteroids, including a handful of 'near-earth objects' (NEOs) which will pass within 30 million miles of Earth's orbit. Scientists currently know of around one million asteroids, but the observatory expects to find another five million in the next few years, including tens of thousands of NEOs. 'Seven near-earth objects' Zeljko Ivezic, the deputy director of the observatory, said: 'There are so many of them, just in a few nights of data, and in just one tiny region. 'We have 2,000 in this few nights of data, and there are seven near-earth objects that have orbits that cross Earth's orbit. None of them is in a position to strike Earth, don't worry. 'We'll get tens of thousands more near-earth objects and will discover about five million new asteroids during the next few years. This is five times more than all the astronomers in the world discovered in the last 200 years, since the discovery of the first asteroid. 'So because of this rapid development of technology today, we can outdo all these two centuries of effort in just a couple of years.' NEOs are closely monitored to make sure they do not change course and come perilously close to Earth. In January the European Space Agency Planetary Defence Office announced that asteroid 2024 YR4 had a small chance of impacting Earth in 2032. The estimate has since been downgraded, but it may still hit the Moon. The observatory is expected to detect 90 per cent of all potentially hazardous asteroids over 460 feet wide, and is likely to solve the mystery of Planet Nine, which astronomers believe may be lurking in the depths of our solar system. The Rubin Observatory also released a striking mosaic of the glowing pink Trifid and Lagoon nebulae in the Sagittarius constellation where new stars are forming in huge clouds of gas and dust. An image of the giant elliptical galaxy Messier 49, usually seen as a bright spot on a dark background, revealed a sky teeming with brightly coloured stars and galaxies. Demystify dark matter The new images show how galaxies cluster together, and experts are hoping the unprecedented detail will help uncover the secrets of dark matter and dark energy – the two most mysterious forces in the universe. The observatory is named after Vera Rubin, the American astrophysicist who calculated that galaxies must contain about ten times as much 'dark' mass, otherwise they would fly apart. She proposed that at least ninety percent of the mass in the universe is invisible and unidentified. The observatory, which has been described as the 'greatest astronomical discovery machine ever built' is located in the Andes on the top of Cerro Pachón in Chile and has taken two decades to build. Its main goal is to produce a huge, ultra-high-definition movie of the universe by scanning the whole sky over 10 years, called the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). The digital camera in the telescope is so big that it would need 400 high-definition television screens to display a single image. When complete, the full survey is expected to rack up 500 petabytes of data – the same storage as half-a-million 4K Hollywood films. Britain to process 1.5m images Prof Hiranya Peiris from Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy, part of the LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration, said: 'We will be looking at the universe in a way that we have never done before, and this exploration is bound to throw up surprises that we never imagined.' Britain will also host one of three international data facilities which will process around 1.5 million images, capturing around 10 billion stars and galaxies. Prof Bob Mann, the LSST:UK Project Leader from the University of Edinburgh, said: 'UK researchers have been contributing to the scientific and technical preparation for the Rubin LSST for more than ten years. 'These exciting First Look images show that everything is working well and reassure us that we have a decade's worth of wonderful data coming our way, with which UK astronomers will do great science.' Prof Vasily Belokurov from Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy added: 'A new era of galactic archaeology is beginning.'
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Largest digital camera ever snaps amazing photos of the universe
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, the largest digital camera ever built, released its first images of the universe, showcasing colorful nebulas, stars, and galaxies. Located on a mountaintop in Chile, the observatory was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Energy. Its initial glamour shots include the vibrant Trifid and Lagoon nebulas, located thousands of light-years from Earth, and a group of galaxies known as the Virgo Cluster. The observatory plans to survey the southern sky for the next 10 years, aiming to image 20 billion galaxies and discover new asteroids and other celestial objects. Named after astronomer Vera Rubin, the project hopes its discerning camera will yield clues about elusive entities like dark matter and dark energy.
