Vera Rubin: This is the ground-based telescope with the world's best camera that will revolutionize astronomy.

This week, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory released its first images of the universe, snapshots that are what in astronomy is called an instrument's "first light. " These images also mark the beginning of a time-lapse that will be completed after mapping the southern sky for a decade , with the goal of delving deeper into questions about dark matter , cataloging the solar system, and uncovering the structure and history of our galaxy.

Billed as "the world's largest camera," the US observatory, named after American astronomer Vera Rubin, known for her research that provided evidence of the existence of dark matter, will operate from northern Chile. Its capabilities to capture cosmic phenomena at unprecedented speed, resolution, and depth have only just begun to be revealed during its testing period.

"(The telescope) gave us deep images of the universe. We were able to see the zoom of moving bodies, bodies that change their brightness, or asteroids that threaten Earth," Alejandra Voigt, vice president of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in the United States (AURA), which coordinates and manages the Vera Rubin project, told EFE at the presentation of the images.

During the first ten hours of observation, its 3,200-megapixel camera (the most advanced resolution today is 870 megapixels, from the Japanese Subaru Telescope in Hawaii) captured millions of galaxies, stars in the Milky Way, and celestial bodies.

"In a single night, we were able to see 2,000 asteroids that we had never seen before," Voigt noted, an unprecedented result considering that the rest of the planet's observatories together discover 20,000 asteroids a year.

The Vera Rubin, located at 2,647 meters above sea level on the summit of Cerro Pachón in northern Chile, a privileged place for astronomical observation thanks to its atmospheric conditions and the darkness of the skies, will finally begin operating at the end of this year, after more than a decade of construction .

Over the next ten years, it will survey the southern hemisphere sky with the goal of capturing the motion of the universe and creating the most comprehensive picture of the cosmos ever made: a mapping known as the Legacy Survey of Spacetime (LSST).

In this way, it will set a new standard for astronomical mapping with an innovative mirror design, unmatched camera sensitivity, rapid rotation capability, and a powerful computing infrastructure.

"Every image Rubin takes will be compared to a reference image of the same area of ​​the sky, which will be processed to detect changes," Francisco Förster, founder of ALeRCE, the artificial intelligence that will process part of the observatory's data, explained to EFE.

Each of the 5.5 million images taken is estimated to detect around 10,000 changes in aspects such as the brightness or position of celestial bodies, in addition to capturing some 20 billion galaxies and stars, information that will be processed in real time and shared with the international scientific community.

"This is the first time that a telescope with such a large aperture, measuring more than eight meters in diameter, has been used entirely to scan the sky for ten years. In addition to producing a dynamic movie of the entire southern sky over that decade, it will allow all the images to be combined to detect the faintest objects ever observed from Earth. For the study of the transient universe, this means having the most precise and productive machine for discovering supernovae and other stellar explosions, with more than one hundred thousand alerts of new objects every night," commented Lluís Galbany, a researcher at the Spanish Institute of Space Sciences (ICE-CSIC).

The LSST mapping, which will be carried out at the Vera Rubin Observatory , will allow us to discover the nature of dark matter and characterize the evolution of dark energy . "It's an extraordinary opportunity to increase our knowledge of the fundamental physics associated with the most pressing problems in cosmology," says Juan García-Bellido, cosmologist and researcher at the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Spain.

Scientists call dark energy the mysterious and colossally powerful force that appears to be pulling galaxies apart at an accelerating rate. Although dark matter and dark energy make up 95% of the Universe, their properties remain unknown.

The Rubin Observatory will also be the most efficient discovery machine in the Solar System ever built. Each night, it will take about 1,000 images of the southern hemisphere sky, allowing it to cover the entire southern sky every three or four nights. In doing so, it will discover millions of previously unseen asteroids, comets, and interstellar objects, changing the game for planetary defense by detecting many more asteroids, with the potential to identify some that could impact Earth or the Moon.

In its first year of operation alone, the Rubin Observatory will collect more data than all other optical observatories combined. This treasure trove of data will help scientists make countless discoveries about the Universe and will be an unparalleled resource for scientific exploration in the coming decades, opening a new era for astronomy research.

With information from EFE and Europa Press