After many years of planning and development, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory is about to start a 10-year survey of the southern sky. This monumental telescope has already produced beautiful new photographs of the heavens and found hundreds of recent asteroids. New Scientist acquired a behind-the-scenes take a look at the telescope in the course of the first few weeks of its operation.
Excessive on a mountaintop in Chile, the telescope has simply begun making observations that can revolutionise our understanding of the photo voltaic system and the large-scale construction of the universe, in addition to serving to to resolve a few of the best cosmic mysteries. Its work pinning down the place the galaxies sit contained in the cosmic net – an interconnected community of matter-rich filaments and voids that spans the universe – will give researchers a greater concept of how invisible darkish matter and darkish vitality affect the matter that we will see.
The Rubin Observatory hosts a 350-ton reflecting telescope that holds world information for the most important digital digital camera and the most important lens. Come contained in the dome with us, get a view of the mirror meeting corridor the place the telescope’s mirror lens was cleaned and put collectively, and go to the management room because the operators spend one of many first of hundreds of nights getting this telescope “on sky” – observatory lingo for opening up the telescope’s shutter and taking photographs.
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