Vera C. Rubin Observatory Begins Decade-Long Sky Survey

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory has begun its ten-year survey of the southern sky using the largest digital camera ever built. The telescope, located on a Chilean mountaintop, will take hundreds of images each night of the same sky regions. The observatory released its first images last year, including shots of the Trifid and Lagoon nebulas.

Equipment has since been adjusted to meet the depth and accuracy needed for the full survey.

Researchers expect the data to help map billions of stars in the Milky Way and billions of galaxies beyond it. Repeated imaging of the same areas will allow detection of fainter objects than previous surveys. The images may also provide information on how galaxies form and cluster over billions of years. Scientists hope the observations will offer clues about dark matter and dark energy.

The project is funded by the U.S.

National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy. The observatory is named after astronomer Vera Rubin, whose work provided early evidence for dark matter. "We're going to see large numbers of scientists across the world working with this data set, studying the universe in a way that they haven't been able to before," said Phil Marshall, the observatory's deputy director of operations.

A light-year equals nearly 6 trillion miles.