A historic telescope has kicked off an unprecedented survey, capturing the southern sky every few days. The Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) began on Tuesday, according to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile.
The Survey’s Goals
The LSST has several goals, including creating a new inventory of our solar system and the Milky Way, as well as studying the distorted light of distant galaxies to better understand dark matter. The survey will also help direct the attention of other observatories around the world, allowing various institutions to work together to collect observations of notable celestial events.
The $800 million Rubin Observatory sits on the summit of the Cerro Pachón mountain in northern Chile, one of the world’s most optimal spots for stargazing due to its dark skies and dry air. The observatory’s camera will capture thousands of images each night, completing a full scan of the southern sky every few days.
Throughout its decade-long survey, the telescope will be able to return to the same spot in the night sky hundreds of times, creating a living image of how each patch of observable star systems and galaxies evolves. The long-term effort will allow scientists to study rare and difficult-to-detect events like never before.
Original reporting: El Paso News (HLL/CB) — read the source article.
