Bay Area-Built Telescope Captures Unprecedented Space Images

The first photographs of the universe from the world's largest digital camera were made public on Monday.  The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park released never-before-seen pictures of the universe.

The Rubin Observatory is located on the peak of Cerro Pachón in Chile, and the digital camera scans the sky to generate an ultra-wide, ultra-high definition timelapse of our universe.

Phil Marshall is passionate about discovering the mysteries of our incredible universe.  He is the Deputy Director of Operations at Rubin Observatory.

Marshall had been waiting for years to see the first photographs from Rubin Observatory's digital camera, which captures the cosmos unlike anything else. 

"I think I described it as a dream come true," Marshall added.  "I have been thinking about this for a long time.  It's very fantastic that it's finally here.  On the other hand, this is only the beginning.  It's incredibly exciting to be at the commencement of the survey, almost ready to conduct all of the universe-related experiments that we've been preparing for so long.

These sharper, more explicit photographs of our cosmos are unlike anything we've seen before, with millions of galaxies captured in incredible detail. 

"Honestly, it's just mind-blowing," said Risa Wechsler, the Stanford and SLAC Director of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology.  "It makes me quite optimistic about the future of astrophysics.  Previously, we could view a lot of the sky or delve deep, but what makes these photographs unique is that they show both.  It is simultaneously a vast area so that you can view many galaxies, millions and millions of galaxies, in one photograph, as well as dive very deep, which will do two things. 

One, for the nearby galaxies, you can see to the outskirts, and you can see all these wonderful details of how they originated, and then for the farthest galaxies, there are simply so many of them.

"We should be able to see the entire sky at that level of sensitivity, that level of spatial detail, and with that time resolution, to see how the university evolves, how variable stars are varying, how supernovae are exploding, how asteroids are moving within our solar system," Adam Bolton, a senior scientist at SLAC, explained.  "We have everything in a digital database that we can query in whatever way we choose.  That is something that has never existed before. 

Every night at the Rubin Observatory in Chile, a digital camera scans the sky, producing a fresh 3,200-megapixel image every 40 seconds, providing near-real-time, essential data about our universe. 

"It makes it clear that the universe is full of galaxies," according to Marshall.  "Our galaxy is full of stars, and our universe is full of galaxies," according to Marshall.  "There are billions of them to be observed, as you can see in the photos now. Each of those galaxies includes billions of stars, so seeing these images is extremely sobering.  "It puts us in our place." 

Marshall described these first photographs as simply awe-inspiring, bringing scientists one step closer to comprehending the mysteries of our cosmos.

During its 10-year scientific mission, the Rubin Observatory will continue to capture photos of our cosmos.  Rubin Observatory will capture more data during its first year than all other optical observatories combined.

The National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy's Office of Science jointly sponsor the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.  Stanford University operates SLAC for the DOE.