As the Vera C Rubin Observatory prepares to showcase its stunning first images on 23 June 2025, researchers across the UK are celebrating their role in the most ambitious sky survey to date.
The Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time, or LSST, will reveal the secrets of the cosmos over the next decade, creating an ultra-wide ultra-high-definition time-lapse record of our Universe.
Enhancing our understanding
The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) invested £23 million in LSST.
UK astronomers and software developers have been preparing the hardware and software needed to analyse the petabytes of data that the survey will produce.
This will enable groundbreaking science that will enhance our understanding of the Universe.
The UK is the second largest international contributor to the multinational project, putting UK astronomers at the forefront when it comes to exploiting this unique window on the Universe.
Data innovation
The UK is also playing a significant role in the management and processing of the unprecedented amounts of data.
It will host one of three international data facilities and process around 1.5 million images, capturing around 10 billion stars and galaxies.
When complete, the full 10-year survey is expected to rack up 500 petabytes of data, the same storage as half-a-million 4K Hollywood movies.
The UK’s science portal for the international community is capable of connecting around 1,500 astronomers with UK Digital Research Infrastructure.
It will support the exploitation of this uniquely rich and detailed view of the Universe.
The ultimate movie of the night sky
More than two decades in the making, Rubin is the first of its kind. Its mirror design, camera size and sensitivity, telescope speed, and computing infrastructure are each in an entirely new category.
Over the next 10 years, Rubin will perform the LSST using the LSST Camera and the Simonyi Survey Telescope.
By repeatedly scanning the sky for 10 years, the observatory will deliver a treasure trove of discoveries, including:
- asteroids and comets
- pulsating stars
- supernova explosions
Science operations are expected to start towards the end of 2025.
NSF-DOE Rubin Trifid and Lagoon Nebulas. Credit: NSF-DOE Vera C Rubin Observatory
UK commitment
Aprajita Verma is a Senior Researcher at the University of Oxford and is the Rubin Observatory In-kind Program Lead.
Aprajita says the wide range of UK activity providing value to the Rubin Observatory and the US community represents the UK’s commitment to LSST:
The UK contribution enables our large scientific community to receive proprietary data access in return and, importantly, allows us to engage and collaborate with international colleagues on a wide range of scientific questions Rubin data will address.
A decade of data
Professor Bob Mann, Professor of Survey Astronomy, The University of Edinburgh and LSST:UK Project Leader said:
UK researchers have been contributing to the scientific and technical preparation for the Rubin LSST for more than ten years.
These exciting First Look images show that everything is working well and reassure us that we have a decade’s worth of wonderful data coming our way, with which UK astronomers will do great science.
Infrastructure for discovery
Professor Graham Smith, Professor of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham and LSST:UK Project Scientist said:
First Look is a beautiful glimpse of what is to come during the Rubin/LSST era.
LSST:UK is making major contributions to the software pipelines on which scientific breakthroughs depend.
It’s also a major player in the global infrastructure that will alert the whole world to exciting new discoveries of moving and exploding objects.
Further information
Images
The full set of first look images will be available to download and publish from 11:30am US eastern daylight time (4:30pm UK time) on 23 June 2025 on the Rubin Observatory website.
