{"id":903537,"date":"2026-06-30T17:33:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T17:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/903537\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T17:33:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T17:33:16","slug":"rubin-observatory-begins-10-year-survey-of-the-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/903537\/","title":{"rendered":"Rubin observatory begins 10-year survey of the universe"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 The largest digital camera ever built<\/a> is starting to capture images of unseen corners<\/a> of the universe.<\/p>\n

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory<\/a> has officially begun its cosmic survey, meant to capture swathes of the sky in more depth and detail. Perched on a Chilean mountaintop, the telescope will point its eye at the southern sky for the next 10 years, taking hundreds of images per night.<\/p>\n

Researchers hope Rubin\u2019s observations will help them take a better census of the universe, mapping billions of stars in the Milky Way and billions more galaxies beyond it. It takes pictures quickly and will grab images of the same areas of sky multiple times, allowing scientists to glimpse fainter objects that previously eluded detection.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to see large numbers of scientists across the world working with this data set, studying the universe in a way that they haven\u2019t been able to before,\u201d said Phil Marshall, the observatory\u2019s deputy director of operations.<\/p>\n

Rubin released its first images last year, including colorful shots of the Trifid and Lagoon nebulas located thousands of light-years from Earth. A light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles (9.7 trillion kilometers). <\/p>\n

Since then, researchers have tuned up the equipment so it\u2019s ready to take pictures at the depth and accuracy required for the decade-long survey. The images may help scientists discern how galaxies form and cluster over billions of years, and how the universe came to be.<\/p>\n

Funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Energy, the observatory is named after astronomer Vera Rubin, who offered the first tantalizing evidence that a mysterious material called dark matter might be lurking in the universe. Researchers hope the effort may yield clues about dark matter as well as an equally puzzling force known as dark energy.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute\u2019s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 The largest digital camera ever built is starting to capture images of unseen corners…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":903538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8],"tags":[4514,57,365817,27902,159,167,67,132,68,9602,107],"class_list":["post-903537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-astronomy","tag-general-news","tag-phil-marshall","tag-planets","tag-science","tag-space-exploration","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-vera-rubin","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116840261711247910","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=903537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/903538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=903537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=903537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=903537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}