A view of the observatory on top of the Cerro Pachón mountain. Photo Credit: Spencer Lowell

Technology Chile29. January 2025

We’ll Soon Have a Map That Introduces Us to <em>Billions</em> of New Galaxies

A new observatory is set to produce a new night sky map, potentially transforming our understanding of the cosmos.

“We have never had such a big telescope imaging so wide and so deep. That’s an incredible opportunity to really pinpoint things that are changing in the sky and understand their physics,” says Anais Möller, astrophysicist at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia.

Atop Chile’s 2,700-meter Cerro Pachón mountain, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory houses the largest digital camera ever built. It is set to capture the solar system in greater detail than ever, with an entirely new map of the night sky produced every three days. Rubin can look far outside the Milky Way, potentially mapping approximately 20 billion previously unknown galaxies. The 3,200-megapixel, 3,000-kilogram digital camera is the most sensitive ever created for an astronomical project. It will have the unique ability to allow astronomers to peer deeper into the cosmos the longer it is in operation by stacking together images taken over multiple nights.

Essentially, the camera will take a 30-second exposure of a massive section of the sky, swivel, and then snap another photo. This will continue non-stop, taking about 1,000 photos per night until Rubin reaches the same spot in the sky where it started three nights prior. This will allow for a constantly updated view of the universe, creating a “huge video of the southern sky,” according to Möller. “I can’t think of an astronomer who is not excited about [Rubin],” concludes Christian Aganze, a galactic archaeologist at Stanford University in California, United States.

Source:
Technology Review

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