The Vera C. Rubin Observatory has began its 10-year Space and Time Legacy Studyusing the world’s largest digital camera to image the entire southern sky every few nights. The project is expected to catalog billions of stars and galaxies, track changing and transient objects, and generate a huge data set to study dark matter, galaxy formation, asteroids, and unexpected cosmic phenomena. The New York Times reports: “This is the end of a 30-year wait,” Phil Marshall, deputy director of telescope operations at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California, said in a statement to the New York Times. “It’s an important milestone for us.” Astronomers hope that this collection of data, known as Legacy study of space and timeto revolutionize your knowledge about the birth of our galaxy, the invisible matter that permeates the cosmos, what gave the universe the structure it has today and more. According to Dr. Marshall, the survey is designed to look at everything, “even the things we don’t yet know we’re looking for,” he said.
The team behind the observatory, a joint effort funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, revealed several images of the cosmos that were bursting with celestial goodness (a look at what the Rubin could do) last year. Since then, scientists have been busy conducting tests and final reviews of the telescope’s operations and systems. According to Bob Blum, director of Rubin operations at the National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, the team has also worked hard to ensure the telescope can operate reliably in different environmental conditions over the next decade.
