{"id":847,"date":"2025-06-25T15:39:41","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T15:39:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/?p=847"},"modified":"2025-07-29T16:12:35","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T16:12:35","slug":"see-the-first-images-of-our-solar-system-taken-by-the-worlds-biggest-digital-camera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/25\/see-the-first-images-of-our-solar-system-taken-by-the-worlds-biggest-digital-camera\/","title":{"rendered":"See the First Images of Our Solar System Taken by the World\u2019s Biggest Digital Camera"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"See<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve ever stood beneath a clear night sky and taken in the incredible, sweeping Milky Way overhead, you\u2019ve probably wondered just what is actually up there. We know there are millions of stars, galaxies, nebulae, asteroids\u2026 the list goes on. But what if we could see them up close? Thanks to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, we\u2019re able to see new high-resolution composites of the Solar System with unprecedented clarity.<\/p>\n

Perched on the summit of Cerro Pach\u00f3n in Chile, the observatory is named for American astronomer Dr. Vera C. Rubin, whose research provided significant and convincing evidence of the existence of \u201cdark matter.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"millions
\u2018Cosmic Treasure Chest\u2019 <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With construction completed in 2018, the facility began surveying this year following numerous tests. It\u2019s home to the largest and strongest lens astronomers have ever used at 3,200 megapixels\u2014the biggest digital camera in the world.<\/p>\n

In the 1990s, scientists began sketching out ideas for a \u201cdark matter telescope\u201d that could take the study of astrophysics further than ever before. The final product, known now as a Large-Aperture Synoptic Survey Telescope, is able to detect incredibly faint objects and catalog their changes over time. It should be able to document 90 percent of Earth\u2019s asteroids and detect ephemeral events like supernovae.<\/p>\n

Recent image releases include enormous views of our Solar System like the Virgo Cluster or the colorful spray of galaxies and stars in what the observatory refers to as the \u201cCosmic Treasure Chest.\u201d Another huge, five-gigapixel image shows the Trifid and Lagoon Nebulae (Messier 20 and 8, respectively) made from 678 exposures taken in just a little more than seven hours of observing time.<\/p>\n

Vera C. Rubin Observatory\u2019s telescope has captured the nebulae\u2019s phenomenal clouds of gas, inside of which \u201cnew stars are forming and blasting out strong winds and radiation, carving up the gas around them,\u201d says a statement. \u201cIt gives us a dramatic glimpse at how massive stars shape their surroundings even as they\u2019re being born.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"a
Trifid Nebula<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

These initial images mark the beginning of a 10-year initiative called Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). The camera will take millions of images, capturing the same points in the sky about 800 times over. A statement says, \u201cEvery time we look at the universe in a new way, we discover new things we never could have predicted\u2014and with Rubin, we will see more than we ever have before.\u201d<\/p>\n

See all images in full resolution, plus a series of videos, on the Vera C. Rubin Observatory<\/a> website.<\/p>\n

\"millions
The Virgo Cluster, with bright stars from our own Milky Way shining in the foreground and a sea of distant reddish galaxies speckling the background<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"the
A drone view of NSF\u2013DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory during the First Look observing campaign. Photo courtesy of RubinObs\/NOIRLab\/SLAC\/NSF\/DOE\/AURA\/T. Matsopoulos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member<\/a> today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article See the First Images of Our Solar System Taken by the World\u2019s Biggest Digital Camera<\/a> appeared first on Colossal<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019ve ever stood beneath a clear night sky and taken in the incredible, sweeping […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":851,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=847"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":859,"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847\/revisions\/859"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.beatlesfansunite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}