Wisconsins Role in Revolutionizing Cosmic Exploration: The Legacy of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, a collaborative project funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science, has released its first set of images on June 23, marking a significant milestone in the study of the cosmos. The stunning images represent the culmination of decades-long efforts to push the boundaries of our understanding of the universe. Located on a summit in Chile's Andes Mountain range, the Rubin Observatory was built over three decades and involved contributions from three continents. Wisconsin played a crucial role in the project, providing important support and expertise. The Rubin Observatory will embark on the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) in October 2025, scanning the entire Southern Hemisphere sky about 800 times over the next 10 years. This will provide the most detailed look at the universe to date, revealing mysteries and movements of faraway galaxies that still elude physicists. The Simonyi Survey Telescope installed at the Rubin uses an innovative mirror system to reflect incoming light onto a camera the size of a car. The whole system rapidly spins to look in a different direction after scanning one piece of the sky, rotating in coordination with its protective dome while maintaining near perfect alignment of the mirrors. Displaying one image at full resolution would require enough high-definition TVs to cover a basketball court. The final step in building the Rubin - installing the 80-ton mirror system - was made possible by Milwaukee-based company PFlow Industries, which custom-built a lift capable of moving critical equipment from the assembly area to the dome. During and after construction, Keith Bechtol, a physics professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison who served as the System Verification and Validation Scientist for the international team in charge of the Rubin, organized a series of "rehearsals" to simulate how the Rubin will operate, accounting for details including the workflow of operating it, the challenge of transferring massive amounts of data from the summit, and even making sure the summit hotel was staffed and had food for its residents. The first images from Rubin Observatory arrived on June 23, and UW-Madison hosted a First Look Party for nearly 100 people to view these images with the public. Even though Monday was the first chance for the public to see the images, some of the scientists involved in the project had already had a sneak peek. The Rubin Observatory is named after Vera C. Rubin, an astronomer who first provided observations suggesting we might not be able to see most of the matter making up the universe. Understanding the properties of this "dark matter" is one of the top priorities for scientists who will use the collected data. But there is so much more to learn; the Rubin is already showing outer space in incredible detail. Just one small slice of our solar system imaged by Rubin Observatory already led to the discovery of 2,000 new asteroids. In one image of the full field of view, scientists detected 10 million galaxies - many for the first time. By repeatedly scanning