Earlier this year, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile released its first images taken of deep space, with one picture capturing about 10 million galaxies. Getting those kinds of images requires telescopes with really, really large mirrors capable of gathering the necessary amount of light.
The only place in the world making those mirrors is right here in Arizona.
Will Clodfelder is with the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory, the research arm of the UA Department of Astronomy in Tucson. He’s showing me around the Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab…