The Vera Rubin Telescope Begins Surveying Our Cosmos (nytimes.com) 43
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory has begun its 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time, using the world's largest digital camera to image the entire southern sky every few nights. The project is expected to catalog billions of stars and galaxies, track changing and transient objects, and generate an enormous dataset for studying dark matter, galaxy formation, asteroids, and unexpected cosmic phenomena. The New York Times reports: "This is the end of a 30-year wait," said Phil Marshall, the deputy director of the telescope's operations at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California, in a statement to The New York Times. "It's a major milestone for us." Astronomers expect this collection of data, known as the Legacy Survey of Space and Time, to revolutionize their knowledge of our galaxy's birth, the invisible matter permeating the cosmos, what shaped the universe into the structure it has today and more. According to Dr. Marshall, the survey is designed to see everything, "even the things we don't know we're looking for yet," he said.
The team behind the observatory, a joint effort funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, unveiled several images of the cosmos that were jampacked with celestial goodness -- a peek at what the Rubin could do -- last year. Since then, scientists have been busy conducting final tests and reviews of the telescope's operations and systems. According to Bob Blum, the director of Rubin operations at the National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, the team has also been hard at work ensuring that the telescope can operate reliably in different environmental conditions for the next decade.
The team behind the observatory, a joint effort funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, unveiled several images of the cosmos that were jampacked with celestial goodness -- a peek at what the Rubin could do -- last year. Since then, scientists have been busy conducting final tests and reviews of the telescope's operations and systems. According to Bob Blum, the director of Rubin operations at the National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, the team has also been hard at work ensuring that the telescope can operate reliably in different environmental conditions for the next decade.
Keep it quiet (Score:4, Insightful)
Or, they'll go after it for the same reason they went after the ocean monitoring system: they don't want people asking questions the Administration doesn't want the answers to. Don't Look Up [imdb.com] was supposed to be a parable, not an instruction manual.
Re: Keep it quiet (Score:1)
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anti-DEI police of the current Administration
That DEI enforcement group seems to be asleep on the job. The current administration has appointed numerous women* to important positions.
*Biological women, that is. Sorry about the rest of you guys. I guess you are going to have to do a better job tucking.
Are you sure about that "biological" thing? Most of them look like Stepford Wives.
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The current administration has appointed numerous women* to important positions.
And fired them, too. Or had you not noticed, brilliant AC? Let's tick off the cabinet-level firings so far:
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem
Attorney General Pam Bondi
Dir. Nat'l Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard
Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer
Nat'l Security Advisor Mike Waltz
This has the makings of a pattern, particularly considering the firing-worthy incompetence and malfeasance elsewhere in the cabinet. It's not a perfect pattern: Mike Waltz is a man. On the other hand, he was quicky rehired
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Democrats: We demand you fire Noem and Bondi!
Trump: I'm firing Noem and Bondi.
Democrats: How dare you fire women!!
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Democrats: We demand you fire Noem, Bondi, Hegseth, Kennedy, and all of the other incompetents.
Trump: I'm firing Noem and Bondi.
Re:Keep it quiet (Score:4, Funny)
Ah there it is. We can't go a day without conservatives thinking about what genitals a person has.
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If you think you're not a woke cunt watching the sexist virtue-signalling of other woke cunts, ask yourself when you last referred to the "Edwin Hubble Telescope".
You didn't. No-one does.
Because hateful woke cunts are busy virtue-signalling. Again.
There's a chance you're correct, oh 7-million UID whippersnapper, and I'm just blind to how hateful I am.
How does the James Webb Space Telescope figure into your analysis, then? Is it hateful woke virtue-signaling to include his first name, too?
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Here's why this argument is silly - by convention, we only use the last name of the person a thing is named after unless being formal for some reason. The URL for this new observatory is rubenobservatory.com, it is referred to in official publications as "Ruben Observatory", but the full name is "NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory", as proclaimed up front when you go to the site.
It's perfectly normal! That's how we've always done it. If you had business with the FBI
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What are you even babbling about?
How will its images compare to Hubble? (Score:4, Informative)
Wider field of view, vastly more data (time-lapse survey of entire sky every few nights), but lower angular resolution than Hubble's sharp, targeted deep-space images.
How does it compare to other ground based telescopes?
Largest wide-field survey telescope (8.4m mirror, 3.2 gigapixel camera). Faster and broader than most ground-based (e.g., Subaru, VISTA), but lower resolution than adaptive-optics giants like Keck or ELT.
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It's not the highest scope in the world, but its forte is mass surveys, not resolution, so it doesn't have to try to compete with Hubble. If it finds something interesting, then another resolution-oriented scope can zoom in.
It's great for finding moving and flashing things, as it allows automated comparisons over time of most the sky. This scope might even find Planet X, although let's not call it Planet X because Elon tainted X things. Call it Planet NoElon.
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but lower angular resolution than Hubble's sharp, targeted deep-space images.
Not everything is about angular resolution. The Hubble is an old hat now. Let's talk JWST instead, that thing has an insane angular resolution. However it would be absolutely useless for the purposes of a sky survey. Much like a hammer is not a very useful tool for screwing a screw.
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They have different purposes. Rubin is a "survey" observatory meaning it is wide and scans sky very fast (whole southern sky in 3 nights). One of its main objectives is to detect that something has changed on the sky, so that other more specialized high-resolution telescopes could stare at that piece of sky for longer.
Cue Elvis... (Score:3, Funny)
"Thank you Vera much."
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Grandpa, drink your sleepy time tea and take a nap.
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People won't call it the "Rubin Space Telescope" because it is not in space.
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I call anything connected to space a "space [thing name]".
Silly of me to use angle brackets.
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I don't think the terms "Rubin Ground-based Space Telescope" and "Hubble Space-based Space Telescope" are going to see much use.
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The short name used for the URL is Ruben Observatory, the full name looks to be "NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory". Either way, the naming honor is preserved and stars receive gaze.
Both names are used officially, following the traditional convention
Legacy? (Score:2)