First Images Emerge From Long-Awaited Vera Rubin Space Observatory

The first images from the long-awaited Vera C. Rubin Observatory have been made public, and they're as dazzling as anticipated. Shared Monday in a US National Science Foundation (NSF) livestream, the images depict millions of galaxies, more than two thousand "new" asteroids, and two revered star-forming regions.

Rubin—a joint initiative of the NSF and the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Science—captured the celestial stunners with its Simonyi Survey Telescope, an agile 8.4-meter instrument whose three mirrors give it a wide field of view, and Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) Camera, the world's largest digital camera at more than 3,000 kilograms (6,613 pounds) and 3200 megapixels. Together, these instruments grab and send 20 terabytes of data to the US, France, and the UK every night.

Viewing a single Rubin snapshot at once would require 400 Ultra HD television screens ...