US scientists have viewed the Rubin’s sky survey as a top priority for more than a decade. The Rubin Observatory’s 1.55-m lens, said to be the largest high-performance optical lens ever fabricated. But it pushes boundaries in other metrics: the biggest CCD camera, at 3.2 gigapixels the largest astronomical lens, at 1.55 m across an extraordinarily broad view of 9.8 square degrees and an anticipated 60 petabytes of visible- and infrared-wavelength data collected across 10 years. Granted, its 8.4-m primary mirror puts it only in the middle of the pack of modern ground-based professional telescopes. The Rubin has immense capacities to match its colossal mission. The wide-angle images that come from this survey may lead to unexpected discoveries at scales ranging from our solar system to the large-scale structure of the universe. While most telescopes aim a narrow field of view at a tiny patch of sky and stay there for a long exposure, the Rubin Observatory’s comparatively squat scope will zip around the firmament and snap a photo in less than a minute, over and over all night long across a period of 10 years. The Rubin Observatory’s comparatively squat telescope will zip around the firmament and snap a photo in less than a minute, over and over all night long across a period of 10 years. Rubin Observatory, now nearing completion at a site 2663 m above sea level on Cerro Pachón, a mountain in northern Chile. Soon, astronomers will have their own fast-moving light bucket to record the mysteries of the heavens-the Vera C. News, sports and fashion photographers rapidly point, click and move their cameras to capture the nuances of their subjects. Rubin Observatory, a program of the US National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab, sits beneath a late-twilight sky in Chile.
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