{"id":62609,"date":"2024-08-13T08:15:30","date_gmt":"2024-08-13T08:15:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/7e0df58b-6040-4b59-911c-c2405407083d"},"modified":"2024-08-13T08:39:46","modified_gmt":"2024-08-13T08:39:46","slug":"the-biggest-camera-in-world-is-part-of-a-new-observatory-set-to-study-the-mysterious-dark-universe","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/rss_feed\/the-biggest-camera-in-world-is-part-of-a-new-observatory-set-to-study-the-mysterious-dark-universe\/","title":{"rendered":"The biggest camera in world is part of a new observatory set to study the mysterious dark universe"},"content":{"rendered":"

We report from the Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile, where the largest camera ever built will soon start shooting the ultimate space movie: an ultra-wide, ultra-high-definition record of the southern sky. <\/p>

By <\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 13 August 2024 at 08:15 AM<\/p>

\n\n

Chile\u2019s Elqui Valley hides a secret door to the stars.<\/p>

A narrow highway heads east through the region\u2019s fertile carpet of green dedicated to producing grapes for both wine and Chile\u2019s famous Pisco brandy.<\/p>

I found myself making my way along a dirt road beside one of the region\u2019s many vineyards.<\/p>

After using the proper paperwork to pass through the checkpoint, I travelled along 20 miles of mountain passes to the summit of Cerro Pach\u00f3n.<\/p>

Here is the Gabriela Mistral Dark Sky Sanctuary, which numbers among the darkest and driest places on Earth.<\/p>

View of Rubin Observatory at sunset in May 2024, on Cerro Pach\u00f3n in Chile. Credit: Olivier Bonin\/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory<\/figcaption><\/figure>

On a mountain ridge 2,700m above sea level is the new home to one of astronomy\u2019s most important new facilities, the Vera C Rubin Observatory.<\/p>

It\u2019s been taking shape here since 2015 and, from 2025, is set to change astronomy forever.<\/p>

Rubin Observatory is not alone on the mountain\u00adside.<\/p>

A few miles before the ridge is a turn-off to the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, while just beyond it is the 8.1-metre (26.5ft) Gemini South telescope.<\/p>

Beyond that, the 4.1-metre (13.4ft) SOAR (Southern Astrophysical Research) telescope.<\/p>

It\u2019s a breathtaking place to be \u2013 in more ways than one, thanks to the thin air at such altitude.<\/p>

Even getting out of the car too quickly was enough to make me dizzy.<\/p>

Like another recent arrival, I\u2019d come to take a look around.<\/p>

But while I was here to explore the observatory, this new addition will be the one taking in the night sky above.<\/p>

\"The
The biggest camera in the world, the 3,200-megapixel Rubin Observatory camera will record an extraordinarily detailed timelapse view of our Universe over 10 years. Credit: J. Ramseyer Orrell\/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory<\/figcaption><\/figure>

The camera<\/strong><\/h2>

In late May this year, the world\u2019s largest camera arrived at the Rubin Observatory.<\/p>

The camera has taken a decade to build at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, California.<\/p>

It\u2019s about the size of a car and cost $168 million (\u00a3132 million), funded by the US Department of Energy\u2019s Office of Science.<\/p>

With a 64cm-wide (2ft) focal plane covered in 189 individual 16-megapixel CCD sensors, its images will be a whopping 3,200 megapixels.<\/p>

A single image taken using this camera is large enough to fill 378 4K ultra-HD TV screens.<\/p>

That level of detail is essential because the telescope\u2019s field of view will be 9.6 square degrees, seven times wider than the diameter of the full Moon<\/a>.<\/p>

It adds up to a vast \u2018eye on the sky\u2019, whose power is equivalent to seeing a golf ball from about 24km (15 miles) away.<\/p>

\"Diagram
Inside the world\u2019s biggest camera: after bouncing off the telescope\u2019s three mirrors, light reaches three fused-silica lenses, the largest being the 1.55-metre (5ft) front lens<\/figcaption><\/figure>

The telescope<\/strong><\/h2>

At the heart of the Rubin Observatory sits the Simonyi Survey Telescope.<\/p>

The team at the observatory are preparing the telescope, ensuring everything is in place for the largest astronomy camera ever built to be mounted on it in November 2024.<\/p>

The camera will record the sky as part of the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), a hugely ambitious project to produce the largest astronomical movie of all time.<\/p>

“It\u2019s going to image the whole southern sky once every three to four nights, taking around 800 30-second exposures per night,” says Sandrine Thomas, deputy director for Rubin construction for AURA, which operates and builds observatories on behalf of the US National Science Foundation.\u00a0<\/p>

“By the end of the 10-year survey, we\u2019ll have about 800 observations of each 9.6-square-degrees field of the southern sky.<\/p>

After each 30-second exposure, it will move to the next field in five seconds, so from the beginning of one exposure to the next is only about 39 seconds.”<\/p>

\"On
On July 24, 2024, Rubin Observatory’s 3.5-meter secondary mirror was installed onto the Simonyi Survey Telescope. Credit: Rubin Observatory\/NSF\/AURA\/F. Munoz Arancibia<\/figcaption><\/figure>

The science<\/strong><\/h2>

The speed and accuracy of the survey will allow astronomers to study the Universe as it changes in real time, from night to night.<\/p>

This is time-domain astronomy, the study of sources of light that vary over time. That includes events that appear and fade over seconds, hours, days or even years.<\/p>

It\u2019s here primarily to probe some of the Universe\u2019s biggest mysteries, notably the nature of dark energy and dark matter<\/a>.<\/p>

The same dataset will be uniquely suited to a broad range of other astronomy too.<\/p>

By the time the LSST project is over, it will have catalogued about 40 billion celestial objects, including interstellar comets<\/a> and asteroids<\/a>, free-floating stars, billions of galaxies<\/a> and millions of supernovae<\/a>.<\/p>

“Only a handful of supernovae have ever been observed in our galaxy, but LSST will be a supernova factory,” says Leanne Guy, data management scientist at Rubin Observatory.\u00a0<\/p>

“We\u2019ll also detect 50\u201390% of all potentially hazardous asteroids that are larger than 140 metres (460ft), which could be more than five million asteroids in the 10-year survey,” she enthuses.<\/p>

“It will be revolutionary for science.”<\/p>

\"LSST
LSST camera in the LSST clean room on 16 January 2024. Credit: Jacqueline Ramseyer Orrell\/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory<\/figcaption><\/figure>

How it will observe<\/strong><\/h2>

For once, this is not a new observatory you can judge by the size of its mirror.<\/p>

With an 8.4-metre-diameter (27.5ft) primary mirror, the Simonyi Survey Telescope has a smaller light-collecting area than Hawaii\u2019s Keck Observatory, and even Rubin\u2019s near-neighbour, Gemini South. But comparisons are moot.\u00a0<\/p>

“What is so very special about Rubin is its \u00e9tendue,” says Guy.<\/p>

\u00c9tendue is French for ‘extent’ and describes an optical system in terms of both its light-gathering ability and its field of view.<\/p>

“It\u2019s absolutely massive. An order of magnitude higher than any other telescope,” says Guy.<\/p>

It\u2019s that uniquely high \u00e9tendue that will allow Rubin to survey the sky so rapidly and deeply, something that neither Keck nor Gemini South could even attempt.\u00a0<\/p>

A limitation of all telescopes is what astronomers call \u2018seeing<\/a>\u2019. It\u2019s the degradation of the image of an astronomical object due to the air mass and the turbulence of the air.<\/p>

\"The
The Rubin Observatory is located in the Chilean Andes to give it optimal conditions for observing the sky. Credit: Rubin Observatory\/NSF\/AURA<\/figcaption><\/figure>

If you\u2019ve ever used a telescope at home and noticed that a planet can look fuzzy one day and clear the next, you\u2019ve already experienced it.<\/p>

Telescopes with a narrow field of view can correct for this using adaptive optics, but that doesn\u2019t work over a wide field of view like Rubin\u2019s.\u00a0<\/p>

Instead, the Rubin team reduced the effects of seeing by choosing a site where the atmosphere has as little impact as possible.<\/p>

“We need a site with a calm atmosphere and low cloud coverage,” said Thomas.<\/p>

Cerro Pach\u00f3n is also not on many flight paths, so there are rarely contrails from planes to worry about.<\/p>

The result is the highest possible number of what astronomers call photometric nights \u2013 clear, transparent skies with no visible clouds.\u00a0<\/p>