The cosmos is about to get a close-up of appropriately epic proportions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Resting on a Chilean mountaintop, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory has officially started the landmark Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), a 10-year effort to create the most detailed and comprehensive record of the universe\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
After nearly 20 years of work, the LSST will use the world\u2019s largest digital camera strapped to the largest survey telescope on the planet to change humanity\u2019s understanding of the cosmos. The LSST brings together thousands of scientists from around the world who will use the images captured at the Rubin Observatory to map potentially billions of galaxies, find asteroids, analyze the solar system and study the secrets behind dark matter, the nearly invisible matter that makes up 80% of the universe.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, we begin filming the greatest cosmic movie ever made,\u201d Brian Stone, acting director of the National Science Foundation, said in a statement.<\/p>\n
After kicking off in June, the universe\u2019s blockbuster moment features images taken of the entire southern sky that put the spectacle of IMAX, the large-screen movie format, to shame, explained Jonathan Blazek, an associate professor of physics at Northeastern University who is helping lead the LSST\u2019s dark energy project.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be the largest astronomical data set that\u2019s ever been collected,\u201d Blazek said. \u201cWhat this means is we\u2019re going to be seeing more objects, we\u2019re going to be seeing further away and the objects that we do see we\u2019re going to have in more detail than we\u2019ve been able to see before.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Rubin Observatory\u2019s camera is already capturing a new image about every 40 seconds, and over the course of a decade, the LSST will return to some spots in the universe up to 800 times. Those images will form the foundation of the most detailed cosmic census ever recorded, Blazek said. In a pre-launch survey, it took only a month and a half for the observatory to find more than 11,000 previously undiscovered asteroids, including 33 near-Earth objects, according to early data from the Rubin Observatory.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The entire scientific community will make use of this data in a large-scale effort that Blazek compared to the Avengers of modern astronomy and astrophysics.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Jonathan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/neu_4f22mp04v.jpg\")
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be the largest astronomical data set that\u2019s ever been collected,\u201d said Jonathan Blazek, an associate professor of physics at Northeastern University who is helping lead the LSST\u2019s dark energy project. Photo by Matthew Modoono\/Northeastern University<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re entering this era where all these clever things that people have been working on for the last decade or more are finally usable and needed,\u201d Blazek said.<\/p>\n