The NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile has unveiled the very first “mega” images of the cosmos obtained thanks to the extraordinary features and wide-field view of its LSST camera—the largest in the world. The camera took nearly two decades to build and involved hundreds of scientists across the globe, including a number of CNRS teams. The world-wide First Look unveiling event is held on 23 June at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C.
The impressive, car-sized Legacy Survey of Space and Time camera is like nothing seen before: thanks to its 3200-megapixel resolution and the wide field of view of the telescope at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory1, the LSST camera can photograph 45 times the area of the full moon in the sky with each exposure. The high-definition images, which use six different colour filters, capture the entire southern night-sky in just three nights of shooting. One year after its journey from the United States to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, the first “mega” images will be unveiled on 23 June at a press conference held at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. This worldwide premiere is the culmination of 25 years of research and construction by international teams, including several research teams from CNRS2.
The exceptional quality of these initial images show that the telescope is ready to start its mission: to scan the entire southern hemisphere sky by taking 1,000 high-definition photographs using six colour filters, every three nights for the next ten years. Studied end-to-end, these scans will provide a high-definition, four-dimensional film of the evolving processes of the Universe. The ten-year project will also generate unprecedentedly rich and profound views of the southern sky and reveal the faintest and furthest-away objects of the cosmos. For the first time on a large scale, this vast survey will reveal the slightest changes in the Universe, from nearby celestial phenomena, such as asteroids and comets, to very distant ones, like supernovae. The project paves the way for major advances in cosmology in dark matter and dark energy, as well as our understanding of our solar system.
In this video, NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory showcases 46 subtly pulsating RR Lyrae variable stars in an early glimpse of the dynamic sky Rubin will reveal. Over the next 10 years, Rubin will detect up to about 100,000 of these stars extending out to more than a million light-years away, allowing scientists to map the outer reaches of our Galaxy and explore the structure of the Galactic halo that surrounds the Milky Way and extends nearly halfway to our closest neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy. Credit: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory.
CNRS: a key component of this international project
The project is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory built the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) camera. As historic partners, SLAC called on CNRS scientists to help build the focal plane of the camera and help design and build its robotic filter exchange system, which will automatically change the camera’s colour filters—each weighing 24-38 kgs—5-15 times per night. By measuring the quantity of light emitted by night-sky objects, and by converging the images taken through the different filters, it will make it possible to precisely determine their position and distance in relation to the Earth. Other CNRS scientists helped develop the computing infrastructure for the quantitative and qualitative data analysis of the gigantic trove of images that will be collected from the 17 billion observable stars and 20 billion observable galaxies. The goal of this painstaking effort is to create the most comprehensive catalogue of data on the universe.
Twenty terabytes of collected data will be stored every night. In France, the France Data Facility (IN2P3) (CNRS) in Lyon will store and process 40% of the collected raw image data. This data will be released to scientists around the world at regular intervals to foster groundbreaking discoveries and breakthroughs over the coming decades.
Why develop a ground-based telescope?
Even with 25 space telescopes currently in use, ground-based observation remains essential in documenting the Universe in its entirety. Larger and more sensitive, ground-based instruments produce higher-precision exposures as a result. These instruments also record larger volumes of data than space-based ones, as the remote downloading of data from the latter remains a complex process. Last but not least, ground-based telescopes can also be repaired and improved with increasingly efficient tools. With this state-of-the-art camera, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory is the latest addition to the fifty or so structures operating equipment and infrastructure to observe the universe from Earth and space.
Notes :
- Named after the American astronomer Vera C. Rubin, who was the first to establish the presence of dark matter in galaxies.
- From the IN2P3 Computing Centre (CNRS), the Marseille Particle Physics Centre (CNRS / Aix-Marseille Université), the Astroparticle and Cosmology Laboratory (CNRS / CEA / Université Paris Cité / Observatoire de Paris), the Annecy Laboratory of Particle Physics (CNRS / Université Savoie Mont-Blanc), the Clermont Auvergne Physics Laboratory (CNRS / Université Clermont Auvergne), the Subatomic Physics and Cosmology Laboratory (CNRS / Université Grenoble Alpes), the Nuclear Physics and High Energy Laboratory (CNRS / Sorbonne Université / Université Paris Cité), the Institute of Physics of the 2 Infinities in Lyon (CNRS / Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1), the Laboratory of the Physics of the 2 Infinities Irène Joliot-Curie (CNRS / Université Paris-Saclay / Université Paris-Cité), and the Montpellier Universe and Particles Laboratory (CNRS / Université de Montpellier).
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And will the Vera C. Rubin Observatory improve detection of Earth-busting NEA asteroids and comets?
After all, if we’re made extinct, there goes photographing the distant cosmos.
And once they are discovered, just what exactly are we to do about it? Write an App?
It takes years to plan any space mission, more years to build the rocket and the method of saving our backsides.
And the NEA will likely be on course with a few months at most to do anything about it.
We really need to lift our game as a species if we are going to do anything about something out there that wants to come here. Maybe we should turn off the welcome light?
We’ll blame them on climate change.
Well, the resulting climate change could certainly be blamed on any asteroid that got here!
Ideally, we capture them and convert them into raw material for industry.
In any case, early knowledge is better. And their existence should focus our attention on establishing a strong presence in space.
Are we really going to get anything from an asteroid that can’t be gotten more easily on Earth?
Once we have a permanent presence in space, as in all the sci-fi movies where something really bad happens, then mining asteroids makes more sense.
I think that the answer to that question is how often current Earth based mining involves the transfer of materials from one continent to another. The costs of getting into space are very high. Depending on the method used for return, getting high value asteroids back could be very cheap a la Heinlein’s “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”. (Spoiler for those who haven’t read – boom!)
USSF has demonstrated a 24 hour turn around in launches. It doesn’t take as long to plan space missions as it used to, we no longer use slide rules, and within reasonable limits we can adjust the mission plan on the fly. Admittedly it’s a difficult thing to get right, land on a spinning tumbling asteroid to push it around, just look at the recent lunar landing failures.
The US isn’t the only game in town, many countries are launching space missions faster than the US is. China is constantly flying new space missions and learning from real data. They have a high failure rate but are getting much better at putting satellites into space. The commercial sector is also launching at a high rate, look at Starlink as an example. The US Government relies on simulations to prove a concept and then go find Congressional funding. The US wants to ensure the mission will 100% work before launch, this takes a long time to prove a mission is going to be worthwhile to the tax payers. A communist dictatorship has some efficiencies. Something tells me the UN isn’t going to fund the asteroid deflection program when they can’t provide water and housing for billions of people.
We do have very effective missile defense systems but they would likely make a bigger mess by breaking up one big rock into lots of little rocks. Instead of an asteroid destroying New York City now we have destroyed the whole eastern seaboard from Georgia to Maine with Biblical fires.
One thing you may not be considering is, to hit a comet or asteroid that is beyond the lunar orbit and on the way to collide with earth will require a heavy lift rocket to get an interceptor drone out to the target in time. Heavy lift rockets aren’t just sitting around, they are expensive. One concept is to put interceptors on the far side of the moon where gravity is much lower than launching from earth.
Don’t worry, Elon Musk will save us all. <sarc>
it’s a difficult thing to get right, land on a spinning tumbling asteroid
I’ve heard plans/suggestions to just explode a rocket (nuke, perhaps) BESIDE it to deflect it.
There’s another video of the telescope discovering new asteroids https://rubinobservatory.org/news/rubin-first-look/swarm-asteroids
Thank-you. Impressive and chastening,
What??? . . . you mean AI won’t survive us?
/sarc
Only if they come from the Southern Hemisphere.
Really??? The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is located at 30°14’41″ South latitude. This means that it can theoretically monitor and photograph the night sky to as far as 59°46” N declination, assuming an unobstructed view to the horizon at its site.
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Nit pick: Why is all of the work seemingly being done in France? Who paid how much to get this thing going and to maintain it?
“Why is all of the work seemingly being done in France?”
The French have reliable nuclear energy to power all the computing.
The back end of major projects is usually even more expensive than the front end- remember the telescope is in Chile, not US
The telescope is in Chile and not in the US because it is in the Atacama Desert, commonly known as the driest place in the world (from Wikipedia), and being located closer to the equator (although in the southern hemisphere) than any location in the US, it also has a better view of more of the sky than in the US.
Also, far, far less light pollution from terrestrial sources, combined with good “seeing” atmospheric conditions, being located on a remote mountain (at about 8,700 feet above sea level) in the southern hemisphere. Even the Rubin Observatory base facility is located about 60 miles (100 kilometers) away from the telescope itself in the town of La Serena.
Fascinating. The video captures variable stars that fluctuate in luminosity by as much as 30% in 30 seconds. By photographing the entire southern hemisphere nightly, it will almost certainly capture images of the alien ships approaching from that direction.
Maybe they will find this guy.
great cartoon! I have most of Larson’s publications but don’t recall that cartoon.
Do you have a link to that file? I’m not familiar with that file type. (.avif)
I found that it downloaded as a .tmp file. Just for fun, I tried “Save as” again and changed the .avif to .jpg. Saved it – and it worked. Amazing.
“. . . images of the alien ships approaching from that direction.”
Are you, perchance, referring to the Vogon Constructor Fleet?
plus 42×10^42. Always an upvote for any reference to THGTTG.
Correction “…fluctuate in luminosity by as much as 30% in 30 seconds.” Meant to say 30 minutes.
Thanks for the post. RE: File type, I copied the cartoon image without noticing the suffix. Don’t know anything about .avif and hope it’s not a problem.
Very cool, thanks Anthony. I’m assuming that AI will be used as a tool to sort through the huge volume of data to answer questions poised by researchers.
Sweet.
Can it take a picture of all the emissions from the CO2 in the atmosphere?
Only Greta T. can image CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere in the visible region of the EM spectrum . . . or so I’ve heard.
Seriously, the optimized wavelength range for the LSST Camera is 0.32–1.05 microns (near ultraviolet to near infrared). This range is divided into six spectral bands labeled u-g-r-i-z-y, each associated with one of the filters.
Since atmospheric CO2 at temperatures in the range of 210-310 K radiates predominately at spectral band wavelengths around 2.0, 2.7, 4.3 and 15 microns, the bottom line answer is no, the Vera C. Rubin telescope cannot image CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere.
But other satellites do have the demonstrated capability to do such.
You may not know (I certainly don’t) but speaking of CO2 and satellites, whatever happened to that CO2 satellite that was all the rage a couple (a few?) years ago?
From the above article:
“. . . the LSST camera can photograph 45 times the area of the full moon in the sky with each exposure.”
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory image processing center must have some MIGHTY FINE algorithms for removing the spurious light signals coming from satellites and orbital debris surrounding Earth. With its very wide field-of-view camera and 3200-megapixel resolution imaging sensor, the raw data in every single exposure must capture tens to thousands of “light tracks” from these man-made objects, yet these are obviously not present in the images released by the Observatory.
For reference, as of February 2023, NASA estimated there to be around 27,000 human-made objects orbiting Earth that are larger than 10 centimetres and which can be classified as space junk . . . that is, they do not have a useful purpose, either now or in the foreseeable future.
— https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/commercial-space/leo-economy/nasa-supported-studies-will-focus-on-addressing-space-debris/
However, Elon Musk/SpaceX has plans to more than double that amount of orbiting objects with just the Starlink communication satellite system. As of late June 2025, there are approximately 7,875 Starlink satellites in LEO, but SpaceX has near-term plans to expand the “constellation” to nearly 12,000 satellites, with a possible future extension to 34,400 satellites in LEO.
Jeff Bezos/Amazon will be an “also ran” in the competition for who can most pollute the night sky, with his “Project Kuiper” global broadband internet service planning to deploy its own “constellation” of “only” 3,236 LEO/MEO satellites.
3200-megapixel resolution – coincidence? Same as my old cell phone.
3200 megapixels is 3.2 billion pixels. I think your old cell phone had a few orders of magnitude fewer pixels…
Dang! This is just the Southern sky… we’re waaayy slow… I was told over and over again as a child, that this was created in just 6 days.
Hmmmm . . . I appreciate the sarcasm, but perhaps you were told wrong, or are just remembering it incorrectly?
According to the Bible, The Book of Genesis, Chapter 1, Verses 1–31, it only took four “days” to create and populate the full night sky:
— Day 1: God created light and separated it from darkness, calling them “day” and “night”.
— Day 2: God created the firmament (sky or heaven) to separate the waters.
— Day 3: God separated the waters to form the seas and dry land, and created vegetation.
— Day 4: God created the sun, moon, and stars, placing them in the firmament to give light to the earth and to mark time.
Creation “days” 5 and 6 were devoted to making sea creatures, birds, land animals and humans . . . nothing to do with the sky or objects therein.
Regarding the Big Bang/CBR, cosmological inflation, dark matter and dark energy, the Hubble tension, and why there are some 2 TRILLION galaxies scientifically estimated* to “exist” (that is, by our observations of light emitted from them as long ago as 13.4 billion years!) in our universe, the Bible sayeth not.
*ref: https://www.sciencefocus.com/space/how-many-galaxies-are-in-the-universe
story tip – article speculating (philosophically) on why our universe contains so very many galaxies, hence something like 2×10^20 stars . . . it seems like an overabundance of “creation matter” that will never be accessible if mankind is forever bound to travel at less than light speed. IOW, if the vast universe was made visible to humans, why was it simultaneously made unreachable?