Many space scientists in Iowa are thrilled after seeing the first high-resolution images being released this week from the mountaintop Rubin Observatory in Chile, taken by the largest digital camera ever built.
University of Iowa astronomy professor David Nataf says the large, detailed photos may deepen our understanding of the cosmos, helping us to comprehend things like how fast the universe is expanding.
“Maybe our understanding of the universe, and by extension our understanding of physics, has small errors in it or potentially large errors in it,” Nataf says. “What the Rubin Observatory can allow us to do, it can allow us to probe several of these questions to much greater accuracy and precision.”
The observatory’s telescope is enormous, with a mirror more than 26 feet in diameter. Scientists are using it to launch a ten-year project to image 20 billion galaxies, 17 billion stars, and many millions of asteroids. Nataf says the observatory is already yielding impressive results…