The Largest Camera Ever Built Releases Its First Images of the Cosmos

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory has begun its survey of the cosmos.

The telescope will create a decade -long, high-resolution movie of the universe.

It will generate about 20 terabytes of data per day, the equivalent of three years streaming Netflix .

In its first year alone , Rubin will compile more data than all previous optical observatories combined.

Rubin Observatory is expected to discover 10 to 100 times as many solar system objects as currently known.

Most of those asteroids are ancient fragments, bits of rock and metal that fractured from larger bodies during the violent process of planetary formation.

Rubin will also double the number of known potentially hazardous asteroids larger than 140 meters across.

Rubin will give astronomers the best chance they’ve ever had to capture rare, awesome phenomena.

Giant stars pulverized by supermassive black holes, massive collisions that release gravitational waves, and bizarre scenarios that astrophysics haven’t even considered will show up in unprecedented numbers.

Rubin represents a shift in focus from deepest images possible to rapid sequence of millions of images that capture short-term changes across the night sky.