The wait is over! This Monday (23), the first images Made by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, a “surtelescope” located on the top of the Cerro Pachón mountain in the Atacama Desert, about 565 km north of Santiago, at Chile.
The installation houses the largest digital camera in the world. With incredible 3,200 megapixel, it has the size of a car, weighs more than three tons and, from now on, will be responsible for providing the largest and most complete “sky map”.
The first records of these lenses were released on a live broadcast from noon (for Brasília time). Baptized “First Look“The event featured simultaneous celebrations in several countries, in a party climate and great expectation for the scientific community. And Digital Look It could not be left out of this!
In one live With presentation by Lucas Soares, editor of science and space of the site, and astronomer Marcelo Zurita, this historical moment was transmitted in all our platforms, with a lot of information and interactivity.
And don’t miss the program Look Digital Newsat 7:30 pm, on Youtube, who will receive very special guests to reverberate this great event but also all the information about this revolutionary instrument of modern astronomy.
Check out the images revealed by the Vera Rubin Observatory
Hours before the big event, the organization gave a small spoiler than it would be to come. The images released first show the virgin cluster and the trifid and pond nebulae in detail.
During the disclosure event, the first image revealed was the Virgin cluster, which was examined in Zoom, showing the telescope’s ability to capture impressive details of the fields observed in the sky. This record was made in just 10.5 hours in parts of seven nights.
Made from more than 1,100 images captured by the NSF-Doe VERA C. Rubin Observatory, the video below begins with a close-up of a spiral galaxy and then expands the image to reveal about 10 million galaxies-which represent approximately 0.05% of about 20 billion galaxies that the Rubin Observatory will capture during its survey over 10 years.
Subsequently, a swarm of more than 2,100 asteroids discovered by the Observatory during the commissioning phase was presented.
The impressive composition of the trifid and lagoon fogs was also presented in detail, with approximate views.
They also highlighted the pulsating changes in the brightness of variable stars called RR Lyraes, which are fundamental to understanding the structure of our galaxy.
Anyone who wants to venture into the smallest details of the images can access the institution’s website (Click here). There, you can zoom, drag and explore every corner as if making a real virtual ride through the sky!
How the surtelescope will map the universe in real time
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is one of today’s most ambitious scientific initiatives. Over the next 10 years, he will make an unprecedented record of the southern hemisphere sky, photographing the same stretch of space every three days, in repetitive movements, taking a picture every 30 seconds, which will help deepen the research on the Universe.
This work is part of a project called LSST, an acronym in English for “Legacy Survey of Space and Time”. Unlike other telescopes that focus only on small areas of the sky, Rubin will scan wide and constant. Each image produced by Superchamers has sufficient resolution to identify a golf ball 25 km away.
To capture different types of light, the camera uses giant filters, sensitive from ultraviolet to infrared. The gigantic 8.4 meter mirror, combined with the extremely wide field of view of the telescope, makes Vera C. Rubin an especially efficient tool to investigate the dynamic phenomena of the universe.
The main objective is to map the structure of the universe and investigate mysteries such as dark energy and dark matter, which together dominate the cosmos. The telescope will also help track asteroids close to Earth, observe supernova explosions, and capture rare events such as the collision of neutron stars. In addition, it will allow you to detect changes in the shine of stars, which may indicate the presence of planets around them.
A growing challenge will be to deal with light pollution caused by thousands of orbit satellites. The lights reflected by these objects can leave unwanted marks in the photos. To minimize this problem, the Observatory team is developing correction software and negotiating with satellite companies to reduce reflexes. These solutions will be important not only for this specific project, but also for the future of astronomy in general.
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is the result of a partnership between the US National Science Foundation (NSF), the Energy Department (DOE) and institutions from various countries.
Most of the data collected will be public access, allowing scientists, students and even amateurs to make their own discoveries based on the images captured.
Read more:
Vera Rubin: The scientist who inspired the name of the Observatory
The name of the observatory is a tribute to the American astronomer Vera Cooper Rubin. She was a pioneer in presenting the first solid evidence of the existence of dark matter, one of the great puzzles of modern science. His work has changed the way we understand the mass distribution and movement of the galaxies.
Vera Rubin was also a tireless defender of women’s inclusion in science, facing gender barriers throughout her career. Even in the face of many obstacles, she continued to pave the way for future generations of astronomies. Rubin passed away in 2016 at the age of 88, leaving a legacy of discoveries and struggle for equality.
The expectation for the dissemination of the first images is immense. For the astronomical community, this is a unique moment, comparable to the launch of great space missions. In addition to unraveling mysteries of the cosmos, the Rubin Observatory should also bring new questions, showing that heaven still holds many secrets to be revealed.
