The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies.
More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos.
One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops.
Photo: AFP / NSF-DOE Vera Rubin Observatory
The new image reveals these stellar nurseries within the Milky Way in unprecedented detail, with previously faint or invisible features now clearly visible.
Another image offers a sweeping view of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies.
The team also released a video dubbed the “cosmic treasure chest,” which begins with a close-up of two galaxies before zooming out to reveal approximately 10 million more.
“The Rubin Observatory is an investment in our future, which will lay down a cornerstone of knowledge today on which our children will proudly build tomorrow,” White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios said.
Equipped with an advanced 8.4m telescope and the largest digital camera ever built, the observatory is supported by a powerful data-processing system.
Later this year it is to begin its flagship project, the Legacy Survey of Space and Time. Over the next decade, it will scan the night sky nightly, capturing even the subtlest visible changes with unmatched precision.
The observatory is named after pioneering US astronomer Vera Rubin, whose research provided the first conclusive evidence for the existence of dark matter — a mysterious substance that does not emit light, but exerts gravitational influence on galaxies.
Dark energy refers to the equally mysterious and immensely powerful force believed to be driving the accelerating expansion of the universe. Together, dark matter and dark energy are thought to make up 95 percent of the cosmos, yet their true nature remains unknown.
The observatory, a joint initiative of the US National Science Foundation and the US Department of Energy, has also been hailed as one of the most powerful tools ever built for tracking asteroids.
In just 10 hours of observations, the observatory discovered 2,104 previously undetected asteroids in our solar system, including seven near-Earth objects — all of which pose no threat.
For comparison, all other ground and space-based observatories combined discover about 20,000 new asteroids per year.
The observatory is also set to be the most effective at spotting interstellar objects passing through the solar system.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
Germany is considering Australia’s Ghost Bat robot fighter as it looks to select a combat drone to modernize its air force, German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius said yesterday. Germany has said it wants to field hundreds of uncrewed fighter jets by 2029, and would make a decision soon as it considers a range of German, European and US projects developing so-called “collaborative combat aircraft.” Australia has said it will integrate the Ghost Bat, jointly developed by Boeing Australia and the Royal Australian Air Force, into its military after a successful weapons test last year. After inspecting the Ghost Bat in Queensland yesterday,
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RIVALRY: ‘We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains,’ a US official said China has started a pair of investigations into US trade practices, retaliating against similar probes by US President Donald Trump’s administration as the superpowers stake out positions before an expected presidential summit in May. The move, announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Friday, is a direct mirror of steps Trump took to revive his tariff agenda after the US Supreme Court last month struck down some of his duties. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these actions,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the so-called Section 301 investigations initiated on March 11.
RSS