Latest news with #RubinObservatory
New York Times
9 hours ago
- Science
- New York Times
How Astronomers Will Deal With 60 Million Billion Bytes of Imagery
It was not that long ago that astronomers would spend a night looking through a telescope, making careful observations of one or a few points of light. Based on those few observations, they would extrapolate broad generalizations about the universe. 'It was all people could really do at the time, because it was hard to collect data,' said Leanne Guy, the data management scientist at the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory. Rubin, located in Chile and financed by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, will inundate astronomers with data. Each image taken by Rubin's camera consists of 3.2 billion pixels that may contain previously undiscovered asteroids, dwarf planets, supernovas and galaxies. And each pixel records one of 65,536 shades of gray. That's 6.4 billion bytes of information in just one picture. Ten of those images would contain roughly as much data as all of the words that The New York Times has published in print during its 173-year history. Rubin will capture about 1,000 images each night. As the data from each image is quickly shuffled to the observatory's computer servers, the telescope will pivot to the next patch of sky, taking a picture every 40 seconds or so. It will do that over and over again almost nightly for a decade. The final tally will total about 60 million billion bytes of image data. That is a '6' followed by 16 zeros: 60,000,000,000,000,000. Rubin's 3.2 Gigapixel Camera At the heart of the Rubin observatory is the largest digital camera in the world, a supercooled grid with hundreds of high-resolution sensors. See how the camera works. By The New York Times PERU BOLIVIA BRAZIL ANDES MTS. PARAGUAY Vera C. Rubin Observatory URUGUAY Santiago ARGENTINA CHILE Atlantic Ocean Pacific Ocean By The New York Times Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Gizmodo
a day ago
- Science
- Gizmodo
A Game-Changing Telescope Is About to Reveal Its First Images. Here's How to Watch
A state-of-the-art telescope nearly 25 years in the making will finally reveal its first images on Monday, June 23, and you can watch the event in realtime. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, perched atop a mountain in the Chilean Andes, boasts the largest digital camera ever built for astronomy. The telescope, overseen by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Energy (DOE), will use this car-sized, 3.2-gigapixel camera to capture ultra-high-definition images and videos of the cosmos. During Monday's event, the NSF and DOE will display Rubin's first images to the public and screen one of the observatory's high-resolution time-lapse 'movies' of the visible sky. You can participate by tuning into a livestream or attending one of the in-person watch parties at museums, universities, and planetariums around the world. The observatory will begin livestreaming the event at 11 a.m. ET, and you can watch it right here. You can also use the interactive map on the observatory's website to find a watch party near you. More than two decades after the Rubin observatory was first conceived in a 'back-of-the-napkin' sketch, construction on this huge telescope is finally nearing completion. Monday's event marks the beginning of the observatory's ambitious science operations. Later this year, Rubin will kick off the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST)—an unprecedented decade-long survey of the night sky. This endeavor will produce 60 petabytes of data that will help scientists uncover the true natures of dark matter and dark energy, catalog the solar system, explore the changing sky, and understand the structure and function of our Milky Way galaxy. Rubin will use its 27.6-foot (8.4-meter) Simonyi Survey telescope—whose unique three-mirror design includes the largest convex mirror ever made—to observe the cosmos on an automated schedule. Each 30-second exposure will cover an area about 45 times the size of the full moon. The enormous LSST camera will capture wide-field images and stitch them together to create a complete view of the southern sky every three nights. Dedicated computer facilities will process Rubin's data in real time and issue global alerts of changes in the sky within minutes of detection. The observatory's findings will be funneled into a massive archive that will vastly increase the amount of data available to scientists. Researchers led by astronomer Meg Schwamb at Queen's University Belfast recently estimated that Rubin could 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 more than 5 million main-belt asteroids—up from roughly 1.4 million. Papers describing these predictions and the software Schwamb and her colleagues developed to make them, called Sorcha, are currently available on the preprint server arXiv. '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 statement. In many ways, the Rubin observatory will carry on the legacy of its namesake, astronomer Vera Rubin. Her work helped prove the existence of dark matter, a paradigm-shifting finding for the field of astronomy. What's more, she published over 100 scientific papers, conducted groundbreaking research on spiral galaxies and galaxy rotation, and served as a trailblazer for women in science. Like Rubin the astronomer, the Rubin observatory will help usher the field into a whole new era of exploration and discovery. With its cutting-edge capabilities, Rubin's first images are sure to dazzle. Monday's event is only the beginning of this observatory's mission to map the cosmos in unprecedented detail, unlocking new insights into the secrets of the universe.
India Today
4 days ago
- Science
- India Today
World's largest digital camera is ready to click at 3,200 megapixels
World's largest digital camera is ready to click at 3,200 megapixels 17 Jun, 2025 Credit: Rubin Observatory The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile is home to the world's largest digital camera, designed to photograph the entire visible sky every few nights using its powerful 8.4-meter Simonyi Survey Telescope. The observatory's LSST Camera weighs about 3,000 kg (6,600 lbs), is the size of a small car, and features a 3,200-megapixel sensor—equal to the resolution of 260 modern smartphones. The camera's imaging power is so immense that a single photo would require hundreds of ultra-high-definition TV screens to display in full detail. The camera's sensors are kept at -100°C to ensure image clarity, and it can switch between six giant color filters (u, g, r, i, z, y) in under two minutes, allowing scientists to study the universe in multiple wavelengths. Over ten years, the observatory will create a time-lapse 'movie' of the night sky, helping astronomers study billions of galaxies, asteroids, and cosmic events, and unravel mysteries like dark matter and dark energy. Built at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California and shipped to Chile in 2024, the camera is scheduled for installation in early 2025, with its first images set to be released on June 23, 2025
India Today
4 days ago
- Science
- India Today
World's largest digital camera is about to release its first pictures
A moment that could change the world of astronomy and our understanding of the cosmos is set to unfold as the Vera C Rubin Observatory, with the world's largest camera, unveils its first telescope, which has been over two decades in the making, is designed to create the ultimate movie of the night sky using the largest camera ever built, repeatedly scanning the sky to create an ultra-wide, ultra-high-definition time-lapse record of our for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, the LSST Camera weighs around 3,000 kilograms, roughly the size of a small car, yet about twice as heavy. It boasts a staggering 3,200-megapixel sensor, equivalent to the combined resolution of 260 modern smartphone cameras. Rubin Observatory's engineering test camera, the Commissioning Camera (ComCam) was removed from the telescope in December 2024. (Photo: VCO) The camera's sheer imaging power is unprecedented: it would take hundreds of ultra-high-definition TV screens to display a single photograph captured by this to peer deep into the cosmos, the camera will enable scientists to observe billions of distant galaxies and faint, nearby objects that were previously beyond ensure the highest image quality, the camera's sensors are kept at an extremely cold temperature of -100C, minimising the number of defective pixels and ensuring the clarity of each shot. The device is also equipped with a sophisticated filter system, allowing it to switch between six massive colour filters — each 75 centimetres across — in under two filters, labelled u, g, r, i, z, and y, span wavelengths from ultraviolet to infrared, granting the camera 'superhuman' vision and allowing astronomers to study the universe in unprecedented at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California, the LSST Camera was shipped to Chile in May 2024 and is scheduled for installation on the Simonyi Survey Telescope in early 2025. NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory, located on a mountaintop in Chile, will revolutionise the way we explore the cosmos. (Photo: VCO) Once operational, the camera will work in tandem with the observatory's large mirrors, collecting and focusing cosmic light onto its powerful sensors. The resulting data will be transmitted worldwide for processing and capturing the sky in multiple colours over the next decade, the Rubin Observatory's camera will provide scientists with a treasure trove of information, helping to unravel mysteries about the universe's structure, evolution, and the nature of dark matter and dark anticipation builds for the camera's first images, the scientific community and the public alike await a new window into the cosmos. The pictures will be unveiled on June 23.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
World's biggest camera will reveal its first-ever photos next week
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The world's biggest camera, capable of delivering 3200 megapixel image of the night sky, is about to show us its first-ever images. The camera, which is housed at the Vera C Rubin Observatory in Chile, is said to be able to see a golf ball from 15 miles away. On June 23 the first images from its ultra-definition sensor will be made public for the first time. This moment has been a long time coming. We started reporting on this monster camera back in 2019, when the giant lens for the camera, which measures 5 metres across, was being assembled at SLAC, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, in California. The camera will capture 1000 images a night over the next 10 years, with the project's mission being to catalog 20 billion galaxies. The First Look event at the observatory next week will unveil "of a set of large, ultra-high-definition images and videos that showcase Rubin's extraordinary capabilities to the world for the first time", we are told. "This will mark the beginning of a new era in astronomy and astrophysics". The event will be shown live on the Vera C Rubin Observatory's YouTube channel and on its website from 11am (Eastern Daylight Time) on Monday, June 23, 2025. Hundreds of venues around the world will also be hosting watch parties that include a public viewing of the live stream. Check out the Rubin First Look Watch Party website to find a location near you.
