Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile reveals first images

AFP, WASHINGTON

The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies.

More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos.

One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops.

An undated handout image shows a combination of 678 separate images taken by the Vera Rubin Observatory in just over seven hours of observing time. Photo: AFP / NSF-DOE Vera Rubin Observatory

The new image reveals these stellar nurseries within the Milky Way in unprecedented detail, with previously faint or invisible features now clearly visible.

Another image offers a sweeping view of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies.

The team also released a video dubbed the “cosmic treasure chest,” which begins with a close-up of two galaxies before zooming out to reveal approximately 10 million more.

“The Rubin Observatory is an investment in our future, which will lay down a cornerstone of knowledge today on which our children will proudly build tomorrow,” White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios said.

Equipped with an advanced 8.4m telescope and the largest digital camera ever built, the observatory is supported by a powerful data-processing system.

Later this year it is to begin its flagship project, the Legacy Survey of Space and Time. Over the next decade, it will scan the night sky nightly, capturing even the subtlest visible changes with unmatched precision.

The observatory is named after pioneering US astronomer Vera Rubin, whose research provided the first conclusive evidence for the existence of dark matter — a mysterious substance that does not emit light, but exerts gravitational influence on galaxies.

Dark energy refers to the equally mysterious and immensely powerful force believed to be driving the accelerating expansion of the universe. Together, dark matter and dark energy are thought to make up 95 percent of the cosmos, yet their true nature remains unknown.

The observatory, a joint initiative of the US National Science Foundation and the US Department of Energy, has also been hailed as one of the most powerful tools ever built for tracking asteroids.

In just 10 hours of observations, the observatory discovered 2,104 previously undetected asteroids in our solar system, including seven near-Earth objects — all of which pose no threat.

For comparison, all other ground and space-based observatories combined discover about 20,000 new asteroids per year.

The observatory is also set to be the most effective at spotting interstellar objects passing through the solar system.

The images and videos from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory represented just over 10 hours of test observations and were sneak peeks ahead of an event Monday that was livestreamed from Washington, D.C.

Keith Bechtol, an associate professor in the physics department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has been involved with the Rubin Observatory for nearly a decade, is the project’s system verification and validation scientist, making sure the observatory’s various components are functioning properly.

He said teams were floored when the images streamed in from the camera.

“There were moments in the control room where it was just silence, and all the engineers and all the scientists were just seeing these images, and you could just see more and more details in the stars and the galaxies,” Bechtol told NBC News. “It was one thing to understand at an intellectual level, but then on this emotional level, we realized basically in real time that we were doing something that was really spectacular.”

In one of the newly released images, the Rubin Observatory was able to spot objects in our cosmic neighborhood — asteroids in our solar system and stars in the Milky Way — alongside far more distant galaxies that are billions of light-years away.

“In fact, for most of the objects that you see in these images, we’re seeing light that was emitted before the formation of our solar system,” Bechtol said. “We are seeing light from across billions of years of cosmic history. And many of these galaxies have never been seen before.”

Astronomers have been eagerly anticipating the first images from the new observatory, with experts saying it could help solve some of the universe’s most enduring mysteries and revolutionize our understanding of the cosmos.

“We’re entering a golden age of American science,” Harriet Kung, acting director of the Energy Department’s Office of Science, said in a statement.

“We anticipate that the observatory will give us many insights into our past, our future and possibly the fate of the universe,” Kung said during Monday’s event.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is jointly operated by the Energy Department and the U.S. National Science Foundation.

The facility, named after the American astronomer who discovered evidence of dark matter in the universe, sits atop Cerro Pachón, a mountain in central Chile. The observatory is designed to take roughly 1,000 images of the Southern Hemisphere sky each night, covering the entire visible southern sky every three to four nights.

The early images were the result of a series of test observations, but they mark the beginning of an ambitious 10-year mission that will involve scanning the sky every night for a decade to capture every detail and visible change.

“The whole design of the observatory has been built around this capability to point and shoot, point and shoot,” Bechtol said. “Every 40 seconds we’re moving to a new part of the sky. A simple way to think of it is that we’re trying to bring the night sky to life in a way that we haven’t been able to do.”

By repeating that process every night for the next 10 years, scientists will be able to compile enormous images of the entire visible southern sky, allowing them to see stars changing in brightness, asteroids moving across the solar system, supernova explosions and untold other cosmic phenomena.

“Through this remarkable scientific facility, we will explore many cosmic mysteries, including the dark matter and dark energy that permeate the universe,” Brian Stone, chief of staff at the National Science Foundation, said in a statement.

The first images of deep space captured by the Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile are revealed in Santiago. (AFP pic)

WASHINGTON : Breathtaking stellar nurseries, a sprawling stretch of cosmos teeming with millions of galaxies, and thousands of newly discovered asteroids were revealed Monday in the first deep space images captured by the Vera C Rubin Observatory in Chile.

More than two decades in the making, the US$800 million US-funded telescope sits atop Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos.

One debut image is a composite of 678 exposures taken over seven hours, capturing the Trifid and Lagoon Nebulae – both several thousand light-years from Earth – glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops.

It reveals these birth places of stars in unprecedented detail, with previously faint or invisible features now clearly visible.

Another, dubbed “The Cosmic Treasure Chest,” shows the universe “teeming with stars and galaxies – the seemingly empty black pockets of space between stars in the night sky when you look at it with unaided eyes, are transformed here into these glittering tapestries,” said Zeljko Ivezic, director of Rubin construction.

Spiral, elliptical, and clustered galaxies appear in vivid reds, blues, and oranges. These colours reveal key details such as distance and size with unmatched precision, helping scientists better understand the universe’s expansion history.

The colours don’t directly match what the naked eye would see, explained scientist Federica Bianco, since the telescope captures a far broader range of wavelengths. Instead, they are representational: infrared is mapped to red to represent cooler objects, while ultraviolet is mapped to blue and indicates warmer ones.

10-year flagship project

An interactive version of the image is now available on the Rubin Observatory’s website.

“One of the things that is very fun is that if you zoom in and you look at one of the fuzzy galaxies there, you might be the first person to be paying attention to that fuzzy blob,” said Clare Higgs, education and public outreach science lead.

The observatory features an advanced 8.4-metre telescope and the largest digital camera ever built, supported by a powerful data system transferring 20 terabytes each night.

Roughly the size of a car, the camera captures 3,200-megapixel images. It would take 400 ultra-high-definition televisions stacked together to view a single Rubin image at full resolution.

Later this year, the observatory will launch its flagship project, the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). Over the next decade, it will scan the night sky nightly, detecting even the subtlest changes with unmatched precision.

Named after pioneering American astronomer Vera C. Rubin – whose research provided the first conclusive evidence for dark matter – the observatory continues her legacy by making dark matter a central focus of its mission.

Dark energy, an equally mysterious and immensely powerful force, is believed to drive the accelerating expansion of the universe. Together, dark matter and dark energy are thought to make up 95% of the cosmos, yet their true nature remains unknown.

“By observing up to 20 billion galaxies, we’ll study how light from those distant galaxies has reached us – and nearly every galaxy’s light has been bent by the gravitational interaction of dark matter that pervades the universe,” said scientist Aaron Roodman. This, he added, will help illuminate these cosmic mysteries.

A joint initiative of the US National Science Foundation and Department of Energy, the observatory is also considered one of the most powerful tools ever built for planetary defence.

In just 10 hours of observation, Rubin discovered 2,104 previously unknown asteroids in our solar system, including seven near-Earth objects – none of which pose a threat. All other ground- and space-based observatories combined discover about 20,000 new asteroids per year.

Chilean pride

Chile hosts telescopes from more than 30 countries, including some of the most advanced astronomical instruments in the world – among them the ALMA Observatory, the most powerful radio telescope on Earth.

Cerro Tololo Observatory helped achieve the landmark discovery of the universe’s accelerating expansion – a breakthrough that earned the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Another major project, the Extremely Large Telescope, is slated to begin operations in 2027 and promises to probe previously unreachable cosmic distances.

The Cosmic Treasure Chest, taken at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile | Image: Rubin Observatory

In a groundbreaking advancement for astronomy, the world’s largest digital camera has captured its first deep-space image, a single image that holds a staggering 1 crore galaxies. The massive 14-gigabyte photo, nicknamed The Cosmic Treasure Chest, was taken using the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), an 8.4-meter-wide telescope based at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile. The stunning photo was made using over 1,100 images.

The World’s Most Powerful Digital Camera

Behind the lens is a cutting-edge camera that has been in the making for two decades. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) Camera is the world’s largest digital camera that contains 189 individual image sensors that together form a 3.2 gigapixel imaging system. The full-resolution photo, which is 14.1 gigabytes, is 97,943 by 51,536 pixels, or 5.05 gigapixels.

A portion of the massive image. Credits: Rubin Observatory.

To put it into perspective, a typical smartphone camera is 12 to 50 megapixels, making the LSST camera about 64 times more powerful. Each image taken by this camera is about 5.5 gigapixels and takes up 14 gigabytes of data.

Why Is This Important?

The LSST camera will photograph the visible southern sky every three nights for a decade, collecting more data in its first year than all previous ground-based optical surveys combined. It will chart billions of galaxies, monitoring their formation and evolution to provide insights into unanswered questions like dark matter.

A portion of the massive image. Credits: Rubin Observatory.

Additionally, its wide captures will enable astronomers to detect asteroids and other near-Earth objects. In its first run, the Rubin Observatory was also able to identify 2,104 previously unknown asteroids including seven near-Earth objects, none of which pose any threats. This represents a significant leap in asteroid discovery

Rubin’s first full image of the Virgo cluster shows a stunning variety of objects — from bright stars ranging from blue to red, to nearby blue spiral galaxies, to distant red galaxy groups — demonstrating the broad range of science made possible by Rubin data.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory has released its first images as it begins its 10-year mission conducting the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST).

The LSST will revolutionize astronomy with one of its primary aims being the investigation of dark energy, the mysterious force driving the accelerating expansion of the universe, and dark matter, the strange substance that accounts for 85% of the “stuff” in the cosmos but remains effectively invisible.

From its perch atop Cerro Pachón in Chile, a mountain that rises around 5,200 feet (1,600 meters) above sea level, Rubin scans the entire night sky over the Southern Hemisphere once every three nights. This endeavor will be the most extensive continuous mapping of the southern sky ever attempted, and will be conducted by Rubin using the 8.4-meter Simonyi Survey Telescope and the LSST camera (LSSTCam), the largest digital camera ever constructed at around the size of a small car.

Just one image from the LSSTCam covers an area equivalent to the size of 45 full moons in the sky. Above is the observatory’s first image of the Virgo cluster, a vast cluster of galaxies located around 53.8 million light-years from Earth. The image shows a vast array of celestial objects, including galaxies and stars. Demonstrating the true potential of Rubin, this image alone contains a rich tapestry of about 10 million galaxies.

Staggeringly, the ten million galaxies in the above image are just 0.05% of the number of around 20 billion galaxies that Rubin will have imaged by the end of the LSST. In fact, in a decade, Rubin will have collected data on an estimated 40 billion celestial bodies, meaning we will have seen more heavenly bodies than there are humans alive for the first time.

Unsurprisingly, many of these objects are completely new and viewed by humanity for the first time today. The objects that are familiar have been highlighted in the image below.

An annotated version of the Rubin image showing some of the 10 million galaxies captured in the observatory’s first image. (Image credit: RubinObs/NOIRLab/SLAC/NSF/DOE/AURA)

“The Vera C. Rubin Observatory will allow us to add depth and dynamism to the observation of the universe,” Roberto Ragazzoni, president of the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), said in a statement.

“With this 8-meter class telescope capable of continuously mapping the southern sky every three days, we enter the era of ‘astro-cinematography’, exploring a new dimension: that of time, with which we expect to study the cosmos with a new perspective, which is now possible thanks also to the use of new information technologies to process a mass of data that would otherwise be inscrutable.”

If it moves, Rubin will see it

One of the most impressive abilities of Rubin will be its capability to study objects that change in brightness over time as it builds the “greatest movie of all time.” This unique power comes from the fact that Rubin can scan the sky at superfast speeds, around 10 to 100 times faster than similar large telescopes.

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The “transients” it sees will include over 100 million variable stars changing their brightness because of pulsations, thermal instabilities, and even because of planets “transiting,” or passing between Rubin and their visible disks.

Rubin will also be able to observe millions of massive stars as they end their lives and undergo supernova explosions. The groundbreaking observatory will also investigate so-called “type Ia supernovas,” triggered when dead star-white dwarfs undergo runaway nuclear explosions after overfeeding on stellar companions.

Type Ia supernovas are also known as “standard candles” due to the fact that their consistent luminosities allow astronomers to use them to measure cosmic distances. Thus, Rubin will also make an indirect impact on astronomy by providing scientists with a wealth of new and better-understood distances between objects in the universe.

Closer to home, by observing objects as they change in brightness in the night-sky, Rubin will provide astronomers with a better picture of asteroids and small bodies as they orbit Earth. This could help space agencies like NASA assess potential threats to Earth and defend against asteroids.

The YouTube video below shows over 2,100 new asteroids discovered by Rubin in its first week of operations alone.

“If something in the sky moves or changes, Rubin will detect it and distribute the information in real time to the entire world. This means that we will be able to observe transient phenomena in action, making new, often unexpected, astrophysical discoveries possible,” said Sara (Rosaria) Bonito of the Board of Directors of the LSST Discovery Alliance of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.

“Rubin will produce a true multi-colored movie of the sky, lasting an entire decade. A movie that will allow us to see the universe as never before: not just through static images, but in dynamic evolution.”

Rubin’s power lies in the details

Hours before the release of the main images above at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT) on Monday (June 23), the Rubin team released several smaller “preview” images that are smaller sections of these larger images. These give the general public an opportunity to witness the incredible detail in images captured by the LSST camera.

“These sneak preview images already highlight the uniqueness of Rubin to look at the cosmos in a way that we have never done before, bringing the sky to life!” Andrés Alejandro Plazas Malagón, a researcher at Stanford University and part of the Rubin Observatory’s Community Science Team, told Space.com. “These preview images also already highlight the sophistication and power of the software used to reduce or ‘clean’ the images: the LSST Science Pipelines.”

The image below shows the Triffid nebula (also known as Messier 20 or NGC 6514) in the top right, which is located around 9,000 light-years from Earth, and the Lagoon nebula (Messier 8 or NGC 6523), estimated to be 4,000 to 6,000 light-years away. These are regions in which clouds of gas and dust are condensing to birth new stars.

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. (Image credit: NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory)

The above picture combines 678 separate images taken by Rubin over just over 7 hours of observing time. By combining images like this, Rubin is capable of revealing details otherwise too faint to see or practically invisible. This reveals the clouds of gas and dust that comprise these nebulae in incredible detail.

“The Trifod-Lagoon image shows these two nebulae or ‘stellar nurseries’ highlighting regions of gas and dust, made from about 678 individual images,” Plazas Malagón said. “It’s impressive how the large field of view of LSSTCam captured the scene all at once!”

The image below shows a small section of Rubin’s total view of the Virgo cluster. The bright foreground stars in this image are located closer to home, lying in the Milky Way. In the background are many galaxies even more distant than the Virgo cluster.

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. (Image credit: NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory)

The image below shows another small slice of Rubin’s total view of the Virgo cluster. Visible in the lower right of the image are two prominent spiral galaxies. In the upper right of the image are three galaxies that are colliding and merging.

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. (Image credit: NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory)

The image also contains several other groups of distant galaxies, as well as a wealth of stars in our galaxy. It is just one 50th of the entire image it came from.

“The other preview images show a fraction of the Virgo cluster, a galaxy cluster of about 1,000 galaxies. Built from about 10 hours of data, we already see the capability of Rubin to capture the faintest objects with exquisite detail, which will enable amazing science. And these images are just about 2 percent of the field of view of a single LSSTcam image!” Plazas Malagón said.

Following the release of these images, the next big step for Rubin with be the beginning of the LSST, which should occur over the next few months.

“The Vera C. Rubin Observatory and its first LSST project are a unique opportunity for the new generation,” Bonito said. “It is a great legacy for anyone who wants to approach scientific disciplines, offering a revolutionary tool for astrophysics and new technologies for data interpretation.”

Bonito added that the astrophysics that can be done with Rubin is extremely diversified: a single observation campaign will allow us to respond to very broad scientific themes, which concern our galaxy but also dark matter, our solar system, and even the most unpredictable phenomena that occur in the sky.”

And with 10 years of the LSST ahead of it, the future of Rubin and astronomy in general is bright.

“These preview images also already highlight the sophistication and power of the LSST Science Pipelines software used to reduce or ‘clean’ the images,” Plazas Malagón concluded. “As an observational cosmologist and having worked in the development of the LSST Science Pipelines and the characterization of the LSSTCam, I’m proud and beyond excited about what’s coming!”

To dive into the first image from Rubin and explore for yourself, visit the Vera C. Rubin Observatory SkyViewer page.