How the largest digital camera ever made is revolutionizing our view of space
is a senior editorial director at Vox overseeing the climate teams and the Unexplainable and The Gray Area podcasts. He is also the editor of Vox's Future Perfect section and writes the Good News newsletter. He worked at Time magazine for 15 years as a foreign correspondent in Asia, a climate writer, and an international editor, and he wrote a book on existential risk.
Ten areas in the sky were selected as 'deep fields' that the Dark Energy Camera imaged several times during the survey, providing a glimpse of distant galaxies and helping determine their 3D distribution in the cosmos. The image is teeming with galaxies — in fact, nearly every single object in this image is a galaxy. H.Stockebrand/RubinObs/NOIRLab/SLAC/DOE/NSF/AURA
Last Thursday, I took my son to the Rose Center for Earth and Space at New York's Museum of Natural History. In the Hayden Planetarium, we watched a simulation of the Milky Way bloom above us, while the actor Pedro Pascal — who truly is everywhere — narrated the galactic dance unfolding on the screen.
It was breathtaking. But it didn't compare to what was blasted around the world just a few days later, as the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory began broadcasting its 'first light' — its inaugural images of the cosmos. I found myself pinching-to-zoom through a picture that contains roughly 10 million galaxies in a single frame, a vista so vast it would take 400 4-K TVs to display at full resolution. I could hold the universe itself on my screen.
Eye on the sky
Perched 8,660 feet up Cerro Pachón in the Chilean Andes, where the crystal-clear nights provide an exceptionally clear window into space, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory began construction in 2015 with funding from the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and the US Department of Energy. Named for the pioneering astronomer Vera Rubin, whose work on galaxy rotation helped prove the existence of dark matter, the observatory was built to run a single, audacious experiment: the 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time.
It will photograph the entire Southern Hemisphere sky every few nights to tackle four grand goals: unmask dark matter and dark energy, inventory the Solar System's asteroids and comets, chart the Milky Way's formation, and capture every transient cosmic event.
What makes Rubin so special is its eye, which is a marvel. At its core is a 27-foot-wide dual mirror cast from 51,900 pounds of molten glass that is still light enough to sweep across the sky in seconds. The mirror directs a flow of light from the cosmic depths to the 3.2-gigapixel LSST Camera, a 5-by-10-feet digital jumbotron that is the largest digital camera ever made. It's like a massive magnifying glass paired with the world's sharpest DSLR: Together they capture a swath of the night sky equivalent to 45 full moons every 30 seconds.
Related Astronomers spotted something perplexing near the beginning of time
And those images, which will be continuously shared with the world, are jaw-dropping. The headlining shot from Rubin's debut, nicknamed 'Cosmic Treasure Chest,' stitches together 1,185 exposures of the Virgo Cluster, our nearest major collection of galaxies, some 55 million light-years away.
But the Rubin Observatory is about much more than producing pretty cosmic wallpaper. Its unprecedented scale gives it the ability to search for answers to grand questions about space science. The NSF notes that Rubin will gather more optical data in its first year than all previous ground telescopes combined, turning the messy, ever-changing sky into a searchable movie.
Cosmic Treasure Chest. RubinObs/NOIRLab/SLAC/NSF/DOE/AURA
It's not just pretty pictures
As I've written before, the world has made great strides in planetary defense: Our ability to detect and eventually deflect asteroids that could be on a collision course with Earth. Rubin has already begun paying dividends toward that goal.
In a mere 10 hours of engineering data, its detection software identified 2,104 brand-new asteroids — including seven near-Earth objects, heavenly bodies whose orbit will bring them near-ish our planet.
That haul came from just a thumbnail-sized patch of sky; once Rubin begins its nightly scan of the whole Southern Hemisphere, it's projected to catalog over 5 million asteroids and roughly 100,000 NEOs over the next decade, tripling today's inventory. That will help NASA finally reach its congressionally mandated target of identifying 90 percent of the 25,000 city-killer-class NEOs (those over 140 meters) estimated to be out there.
How powerful is Rubin's eye? 'It took 225 years of astronomical observations to detect the first 1.5 million asteroids,' Jake Kurlander, a grad student astronomer at the University of Washington, told Earth.com. 'Rubin will double that number in less than a year.'
Trifid and Lagoon Nebulae. RubinObs/NOIRLab/SLAC/NSF/DOE/AURA
And the images that Rubin captures will go out to the entire world. Its Skyviewer app will allow anyone to zoom in and out of the corners of space that catch Rubin's eye, including celestial objects so new that most of them don't have names. Looking at the app gives you a sense of what it must have been like to be one of the first human beings, gazing up at a sky filled with wonder and mystery.
Finding perspective in a pixel
It might seem strange to highlight a telescope at a moment when the world feels as if it is literally on fire. But the Vera Rubin Observatory isn't just a triumph of international scientific engineering, or an unparalleled window on the universe. It is the ultimate perspective provider.
If you open the Virgo image and zoom all the way out, Earth's orbit would be smaller than a single pixel. Yet that same pixel is where thousands of engineers, coders, machinists, and scientists quietly spent a decade building an eye that can watch the rest of the universe breathe, and then share those images with all of their fellow humans.
Seeing Rubin's images brought to mind the lines of Walt Whitman's 'When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer.'
I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.
On days when life on our little world feels chaotic, Rubin's first-light view offers a valuable reminder: We're just one tiny part in a tapestry of 10 million galaxies, looking up from our planet at the endless stars.
A version of this story originally appeared in the Good News newsletter. Sign up here!
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Vox
8 hours ago
- Vox
How the largest digital camera ever made is revolutionizing our view of space
is a senior editorial director at Vox overseeing the climate teams and the Unexplainable and The Gray Area podcasts. He is also the editor of Vox's Future Perfect section and writes the Good News newsletter. He worked at Time magazine for 15 years as a foreign correspondent in Asia, a climate writer, and an international editor, and he wrote a book on existential risk. Ten areas in the sky were selected as 'deep fields' that the Dark Energy Camera imaged several times during the survey, providing a glimpse of distant galaxies and helping determine their 3D distribution in the cosmos. The image is teeming with galaxies — in fact, nearly every single object in this image is a galaxy. Last Thursday, I took my son to the Rose Center for Earth and Space at New York's Museum of Natural History. In the Hayden Planetarium, we watched a simulation of the Milky Way bloom above us, while the actor Pedro Pascal — who truly is everywhere — narrated the galactic dance unfolding on the screen. It was breathtaking. But it didn't compare to what was blasted around the world just a few days later, as the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory began broadcasting its 'first light' — its inaugural images of the cosmos. I found myself pinching-to-zoom through a picture that contains roughly 10 million galaxies in a single frame, a vista so vast it would take 400 4-K TVs to display at full resolution. I could hold the universe itself on my screen. Eye on the sky Perched 8,660 feet up Cerro Pachón in the Chilean Andes, where the crystal-clear nights provide an exceptionally clear window into space, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory began construction in 2015 with funding from the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and the US Department of Energy. Named for the pioneering astronomer Vera Rubin, whose work on galaxy rotation helped prove the existence of dark matter, the observatory was built to run a single, audacious experiment: the 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time. It will photograph the entire Southern Hemisphere sky every few nights to tackle four grand goals: unmask dark matter and dark energy, inventory the Solar System's asteroids and comets, chart the Milky Way's formation, and capture every transient cosmic event. What makes Rubin so special is its eye, which is a marvel. At its core is a 27-foot-wide dual mirror cast from 51,900 pounds of molten glass that is still light enough to sweep across the sky in seconds. The mirror directs a flow of light from the cosmic depths to the 3.2-gigapixel LSST Camera, a 5-by-10-feet digital jumbotron that is the largest digital camera ever made. It's like a massive magnifying glass paired with the world's sharpest DSLR: Together they capture a swath of the night sky equivalent to 45 full moons every 30 seconds. Related Astronomers spotted something perplexing near the beginning of time And those images, which will be continuously shared with the world, are jaw-dropping. The headlining shot from Rubin's debut, nicknamed 'Cosmic Treasure Chest,' stitches together 1,185 exposures of the Virgo Cluster, our nearest major collection of galaxies, some 55 million light-years away. But the Rubin Observatory is about much more than producing pretty cosmic wallpaper. Its unprecedented scale gives it the ability to search for answers to grand questions about space science. The NSF notes that Rubin will gather more optical data in its first year than all previous ground telescopes combined, turning the messy, ever-changing sky into a searchable movie. Cosmic Treasure Chest. RubinObs/NOIRLab/SLAC/NSF/DOE/AURA It's not just pretty pictures As I've written before, the world has made great strides in planetary defense: Our ability to detect and eventually deflect asteroids that could be on a collision course with Earth. Rubin has already begun paying dividends toward that goal. In a mere 10 hours of engineering data, its detection software identified 2,104 brand-new asteroids — including seven near-Earth objects, heavenly bodies whose orbit will bring them near-ish our planet. That haul came from just a thumbnail-sized patch of sky; once Rubin begins its nightly scan of the whole Southern Hemisphere, it's projected to catalog over 5 million asteroids and roughly 100,000 NEOs over the next decade, tripling today's inventory. That will help NASA finally reach its congressionally mandated target of identifying 90 percent of the 25,000 city-killer-class NEOs (those over 140 meters) estimated to be out there. How powerful is Rubin's eye? 'It took 225 years of astronomical observations to detect the first 1.5 million asteroids,' Jake Kurlander, a grad student astronomer at the University of Washington, told 'Rubin will double that number in less than a year.' Trifid and Lagoon Nebulae. RubinObs/NOIRLab/SLAC/NSF/DOE/AURA And the images that Rubin captures will go out to the entire world. Its Skyviewer app will allow anyone to zoom in and out of the corners of space that catch Rubin's eye, including celestial objects so new that most of them don't have names. Looking at the app gives you a sense of what it must have been like to be one of the first human beings, gazing up at a sky filled with wonder and mystery. Finding perspective in a pixel It might seem strange to highlight a telescope at a moment when the world feels as if it is literally on fire. But the Vera Rubin Observatory isn't just a triumph of international scientific engineering, or an unparalleled window on the universe. It is the ultimate perspective provider. If you open the Virgo image and zoom all the way out, Earth's orbit would be smaller than a single pixel. Yet that same pixel is where thousands of engineers, coders, machinists, and scientists quietly spent a decade building an eye that can watch the rest of the universe breathe, and then share those images with all of their fellow humans. Seeing Rubin's images brought to mind the lines of Walt Whitman's 'When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer.' I wander'd off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars. On days when life on our little world feels chaotic, Rubin's first-light view offers a valuable reminder: We're just one tiny part in a tapestry of 10 million galaxies, looking up from our planet at the endless stars. A version of this story originally appeared in the Good News newsletter. Sign up here!
USA Today
9 hours ago
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Cosmic wonders from Chile, record heat wave and July Fourth food: The week in review
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Yahoo
20 hours ago
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Hello, neighbor! See the Andromeda galaxy like never before in stunning new image from NASA's Chandra telescope (video)
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The galaxy next door to the Milky Way, Andromeda, has never looked as stunning as it does in a new image from NASA's Chandra X-ray space telescope. The image of the galaxy, also known as Messier 31 (M31), was created with assistance from a range of other space telescopes and ground-based instruments including the European Space Agency (ESA) XMM-Newton mission, NASA's retired space telescopes GALEX and the Spitzer Space Telescope as well as the Infrared Astronomy Satellite, COBE, Planck, and Herschel, in addition to radio data from the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope. All these instruments observed Andromeda in different wavelengths of light across the electromagnetic spectrum, with astronomers bringing this data together to create a stunning and intricate image. The image is a fitting tribute to astronomer Vera C. Rubin, who was responsible for the discovery of dark matter thanks to her observations of Andromeda. As the closest large galaxy to the Milky Way, at just around 2.5 million light-years away, Andromeda has been vital in allowing astronomers to study aspects of galaxies that aren't accessible from our own galaxy. For example, from inside the Milky Way, we can't see our galaxy's spiral arms, but we can see the spiral arms of Andromeda. Every wavelength of light that was brought together to create this incredible new image of Andromeda tells astronomers something different and unique about the galaxy next door. For example, the X-ray data provided by Chandra has revealed the high-energy radiation released from around Andromeda's central supermassive black hole, known as M31*. M31* is considerably larger than the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way, known as Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*). While our home supermassive black hole has a mass 4.3 million times that of the sun, M31* dwarfs it with a mass 100 million times that of the sun. M31* is also notable for its occasional flares, one of which was observed in X-rays back in 2013, while Sgr A* is a much "quieter" black hole. Andromeda was chosen as a tribute to Rubin because this neighboring galaxy played a crucial role in the astronomer's discovery of a missing element of the universe. An element that we now call dark matter. In the 1960s, Rubin and collaborators precisely measured the rotation of Andromeda. They found that the speed at which this galaxy's spiral arms spun indicated that the galaxy was surrounded by a vast halo of an unknown and invisible form of matter. The mass of this matter provided the gravitational influence that was preventing Andromeda from flying apart due to its rotational speed. The gravity of its visible matter wouldn't have been sufficient to hold this galaxy then, astronomers have discovered that all large galaxies seem to be surrounded by similar haloes of what is now known as dark matter. This has led to the discovery that the matter which comprises all the things we see around us — stars, planets, moons, our bodies, next door's cat — accounts for just 15% of the "stuff" in the cosmos, with dark matter accounting for the other 85%. The finding has also prompted the search for particles beyond the standard model of particle physics that could compose dark matter. Thus, there's no doubt that Rubin's work delivered a watershed moment in astronomy, and one of the most important breakthroughs in modern science, fundamentally changing our concept of the universe. Related Stories: — How did Andromeda's dwarf galaxies form? Hubble Telescope finds more questions than answers — The Milky Way may not collide with neighboring galaxy Andromeda after all: 'From near-certainty to a coin flip' — Gorgeous deep space photo captures the Andromeda Galaxy surrounded by glowing gas June 2025 has been a brilliant month of recognition of Rubin's immense impact on astronomy and her lasting legacy. In addition to this tribute image, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory released its first images of the cosmos as it gears up to conduct a 10-year observing program of the southern sky called the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). Additionally, in recognition of Rubin's monumental contributions to our understanding of the universe, the United States Mint recently released a quarter featuring Rubin as part of its American Women Quarters Program. She is the first astronomer to be honored in the series.
