First celestial images from 10-year project photographing the universe released
The National Science Foundation facility in Chile will now begin its primary mission of taking the most detailed video yet of the Southern Hemisphere sky, capturing more than 20 billion galaxies.
Vera C. Rubin Observatory captures 'cosmic treasure chest'
Made from over 1,100 images captured by NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory, the video begins with a close-up of two galaxies then zooms out to reveal about 10 million galaxies. Those 10 million galaxies are roughly .05% of the approximately 20 billion galaxies Rubin Observatory will capture during its 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time.
WASHINGTON – Like the first brush strokes on a massive canvas, the first images from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile are a glimpse at the larger picture of our universe to come.
The $571-million National Science Foundation and Department of Energy facility on top of the summit of Cerro Pachon will create the largest astronomical movie yet of the Southern Hemisphere over 10 years, known as the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST).
On Monday, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory revealed its first images of the universe, taken over a period of hours, showcasing the incredible detailed imagery and scale the new facility is capable of. A team of scientists unveiled the first-look images during a live event in Washington.
Aaron Roodman, of Stanford University SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, leader of the LSST camera team, said they chose areas of sky that would be "interesting" for these first images, but it almost didn't matter where they looked.
This image shows a small section of NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory's total view of the Virgo cluster. Bright stars in the Milky Way galaxy shine in the foreground, and many distant galaxies are in the background. (NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory / FOX Weather)
"We're going to see changing objects," Roodman said. "We're going to see moving objects. We're gonna get a view of thousands and thousands of galaxies and stars in any field we look at. So, in some sense, we could have looked anywhere and gotten fantastic images."
WHO WAS VERA RUBIN? DARK MATTER ASTRONOMER'S LEGACY CONTINUES THROUGH NEW OBSERVATORY
The observatory took two decades to complete and was named after the astronomer credited with the first evidence of dark matter. Many in the scientific community still believe Rubin was overlooked for the Nobel Prize.
Left: Vera Rubin looking through a telescope at Vassar College where she studied astronomy in the 1940s. She was the only astronomy major in her graduating class. Right: Rubin analyzing the spectra of stars at the Carnegie Institution in the 1970s, work which led her to confirm dark matter's existence. (Credit: Left: Vassar College, courtesy of AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives / Right: AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Rubin Collection)
The brightly colored cosmic landscape below of the Trifid and Lagoon nebulae was taken over seven hours and a combined 678 images. According to the NSF, the clouds of gas and dust are visible due to this image's layering process.
This image combines 678 separate images taken by NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory in just over seven hours of observing time. Combining many images in this way clearly reveals otherwise faint or invisible details, such as the clouds of gas and dust that comprise the Trifid nebula (top right) and the Lagoon nebula, which are several thousand light-years away from Earth. (NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory / FOX Weather)
According to the Rubin team, the observatory has discovered more than 2,000 asteroids never-before-seen in our solar system as of Monday. These new asteroids were submitted to NASA's Small-Body Database, including seven near-Earth asteroids, which pose no danger to our planet.
New asteroids discovered by Vera C. Rubin Observatory
In about 10 hours of observations, NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory discovered 2,104 never-before-seen asteroids in our solar system, including seven near-Earth asteroids.
The scale of this discovery is huge. Every year about 20,000 asteroids are discovered in total by all space and ground observatories. Rubin made these discoveries in about 10 hours.
An excerpt of some of the more than 2,000 asteroids discovered by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. (NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory / FOX Weather)
Rubin’s powerful digital camera was used to capture the Virgo cluster within our home galaxy, the Milky Way. The image below shows two spiral galaxies sparkling in blue, and the ghostly hue of merging galaxies in the upper right.
The Rubin Observatory took more than 1,100 images, showcasing about 10 million galaxies. The galaxy map is just .05% of the 20 billion galaxies that will be captured during the course of the 10-year LSST.
This image shows another small section of NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory's total view of the Virgo cluster. Visible are two prominent spiral galaxies (lower right), three merging galaxies (upper right), several groups of distant galaxies, many stars in the Milky Way galaxy and more. (NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory / FOX Weather)
The speed and power of this new science tool collects petabytes of data – there are more than 1,000 terabytes per petabyte – requiring machine-learning algorithms and data management to process it all.
Deputy Director for Data Management Yusra AlSayyad said the telescope will take an image of the night sky every 30 seconds.
"That's way too fast for a human to be in the loop and decide where we're going to observe tonight," AlSayyad said. You can think of it as a robotic telescope where we are going to use an automated scheduler. To choose the best parts of the sky to observe tonight, in order to achieve the survey goals that we want."
As the LSST camera collects more data, AlSayyad said it will see rare celestial events, only discovered if AI is always watching.