The first images taken by the world's largest camera, the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), located at the Vera Rubin Observatory, have been released. These images show cosmic phenomena captured on an unprecedented scale.
In just over 10 hours of test observations, the Vera Rubin Observatory captured millions of galaxies and stars in the Milky Way, as well as thousands of asteroids. The images are just a small preview of the observatory’s upcoming 10-year science mission to explore and unravel some of the universe’s greatest mysteries.
The human eye cannot see the entire image taken by the LSST at once: it would require 400 ultra-high-definition screens to display it. The field of view is also huge — 45 times the area of the full moon. The image was taken by the world's largest camera with a resolution of 3200 megapixels. To display it, scientists from the observatory left a special widget on the website, where you can examine the image in detail.
"The NSF-DOE Vera Rubin Observatory will gather more information about our universe than all optical telescopes in history combined," added Brian Stone, acting director of NSF. "With this remarkable scientific facility, we will explore many of the mysteries of the cosmos, including the dark matter and dark energy that pervade the universe."
The LSST camera is the result of more than 20 years of work at the observatory. Completed last year, it features a wide-angle, large-aperture optical lens that allows it to capture light from the near ultraviolet to near infrared.