Latest news with #MegSchwamb
Gizmodo
5 days ago
- Science
- Gizmodo
Upcoming Telescope Predicted to Discover Millions of Hidden Solar System Objects
With 3.2 billion pixels and a decade-long search, the Rubin Observatory will reveal what's been hiding in plain sight. A new observatory perched high in the Chilean Andes is about to blow the lid off our solar system—and scientists say it's going to be like switching from a black-and-white TV to 4K color. The National Science Foundation and Department of Energy project, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, is slated to begin operations later this year. Armed with the largest digital camera ever built for astronomy and a sweeping, ultra-sensitive telescope, the observatory is expected to discover millions of previously unknown asteroids, comets, and other planetary leftovers—some of which venture uncomfortably close to our own planet. Now, researchers led by Meg Schwamb at Queen's University Belfast have developed an open-source software program, Sorcha, that predicts the discoveries that Rubin may make. The papers describing the software and the associated predictions are available on the preprint server arXiv. The team estimates that Rubin will triple the number of known near-Earth objects (NEOs) from about 38,000 to 127,000, detect ten times more trans-Neptunian objects than currently cataloged, and provide colorful, detailed observations of over 5 million main-belt asteroids (up from about 1.4 million). 'With this data, we'll be able to update the textbooks of solar system formation and vastly improve our ability to spot—and potentially deflect—the asteroids that could threaten Earth,' said Mario Juric, a member of the team and an astronomer at the University of Washington, in a university release. Sorcha models the solar system's current structure, then projects what Rubin is likely to see, based on its planned observations. It's the first end-to-end simulator for Rubin, meaning that it models expectations from simulated photons of light from distant sources to the expected science to come from those findings. The Rubin Observatory's secret weapon is its 3.2-gigapixel LSST camera, which can scan an area roughly 45 times the area of the full Moon each night. In less than a week, the camera can survey the entire night sky, and over the next decade, it'll produce a cosmic time-lapse comprising 20 terabytes of nightly data. Rubin's data will help scientists piece together how our solar system formed and evolved. The predicted stats are staggering: 127,000 NEOs, 109,000 Jupiter Trojans, 37,000 distant Kuiper Belt objects, and more. Rubin will find them all in color and motion, revealing spin rates, surface types, and more. In turn, these observations will help space agencies and scientists land on their next observational targets. The Sorcha code, along with simulated sky maps and orbital animations, is available now at so researchers can prepare for the LSST data to come. The first public images from Rubin's 'First Look' event will be revealed on June 23.
Belfast Telegraph
6 days ago
- General
- Belfast Telegraph
New facility to detect millions of new solar system objects, say NI-led astronomers
The brand new facility at NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile will revolutionise the world's knowledge of the solar system's 'small bodies': asteroids, comets and other minor planets. At the heart of the Rubin Observatory is the fastest moving telescope equipped with the world's largest digital camera. A single image from the telescope covers a patch of sky roughly 45 times the area of the full moon. This 'wide-fast-deep' system will spend the next ten years observing the night sky to produce the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). Astronomers say the system will provide unprecedented time-lapse footage of the cosmos and a powerful dataset with which to map the solar system. New open-source software has also been created to predict what discoveries are likely to be made, with a series of papers describing the software soon to be published by The Astronomical Journal. The group of astronomers has been led by Dr Meg Schwamb of Queen's University Belfast's School of Mathematics and Physics. Dr Schwamb said the world's knowledge of what objects fill the Earth's solar system 'is about to expand exponentially and rapidly'. QUB PhD student Joe Murtagh is one of the lead authors of the prediction studies and among those whose papers have been submitted to the Astronomical Journal. He said: 'It's very exciting – we expect that millions of new solar system objects will be detected and most of these will be picked up in the first few years of sky survey.' "With the LSST catalogue of solar system objects, our work shows that it will be like going from black-and-white television to brilliant colour.' Beyond just finding these new small bodies, Rubin Observatory will observe them multiple times in different optical filters, revealing their surface colours. Past solar system surveys, typically observed only in a single filter. To forecast which small bodies will be discovered, the team built Sorcha, the first end-to-end simulator that ingests Rubin's planned observing schedule. It applies assumptions on how Rubin Observatory observes and detects astronomical sources in its images with the best model of what the solar system and its small body reservoirs look like today. The team's simulations show that Rubin will map 127,000 near-Earth objects such as asteroids and comets whose orbits cross or approach the planet. It will also study over five million main-belt asteroids and 109,000 Jupiter Trojans, bodies which share Jupiter's orbit at stable 'Lagrange' points. Some 37,000 trans-Neptunian objects, which are residents of the distant Kuiper Belt, will also be mapped, along with around 1,500 to 2,000 Centaurs. The Sorcha code is open-source and freely available with the simulated catalogues, animations, and pre-prints of the papers publicly available at News Catch Up - Tuesday 3 June By making these resources available, the Sorcha team has enabled researchers worldwide to refine their tools and be ready for the flood of LSST data that Rubin will generate, advancing the understanding of the small bodies that illuminate the solar system like never before. Rubin Observatory is scheduled to unveil its first spectacular imagery at its 'First Look' event on June 23, offering the world an early glimpse of the survey's power. Full science operations are slated to begin later this year.
