Welcome to a mind-blowing new era of astronomy.
The long-awaited Vera C. Rubin Observatory, a cutting-edge new telescope perched atop a mountain in Chile, released its first images of the universe on June 23—and its views are just as jaw-dropping as scientists hoped.
The new images come from only 10 hours of observations—an eyeblink compared with the telescope’s first real work, the groundbreaking, 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) project. On display are billowing gas clouds that are thousands of light-years away from our solar system and millions of sparkling galaxies—all emblematic of the cosmic riches that the observatory will ultimately reveal.
“You can see here a universe teeming with stars and galaxies,” said Željko Ivezić, an astronomer at the University of Washington and director of the Rubin Observatory, during a live event held by the observatory. “The seemingly empty, black pockets of space between stars in the night sky when you look at it with unaided eyes, are transformed here into these glittering tapestries.”
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