UK astronomers are celebrating the launch of the Rubin Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), which began last night from a mountaintop in Chile.
A milestone that the UK astronomy community has spent more than a decade preparing for, it’s the start of one of the most ambitious studies of the cosmos ever undertaken.
Movie of the universe
For the next 10 years, the LSST will capture the entire southern sky to create an ultra-wide, ultra-high-definition time-lapse record of our Universe.
This movie will help us solve some of the Universe’s biggest mysteries, such as the nature of dark energy, and the evolution of the solar system, Milky Way, and galaxies across cosmic time.
UK investment, global discovery
As a major international partner of the US-led Rubin Observatory, UK’s involvement is facilitated through a multi-million-pound investment by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).
Formed in 2014, the LSST:UK Consortium is made up of 36 partner institutions representing all major UK astronomy research groups.
Researchers and software developers across the UK are addressing scientific and technical challenges posed by this revolutionary observatory.
A new era in astronomy
Professor Grahame Blair, Executive Director of Programmes at STFC, said:
Today marks the beginning of a new era in astronomy. Together with our partners, UK scientists, engineers and software experts, STFC is excited to be part of one of the most ambitious scientific projects ever undertaken.
The discoveries made over the next decade will inspire future generations, deepen our understanding of the cosmos, and reinforce the UK’s position at the forefront of astronomical research.
Enhancing our understanding of the Universe
As part of the UK contribution, key innovations are expanding the scientific reach of the LSST.
At the University of Southampton, a team of astronomers has developed image-processing software.
This will uncover the kinds of distant and dust-shrouded galaxies and black holes that might be missed using LSST data alone.
Professor Manda Banerji, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Southampton, leads a team that will fuse together Rubin data with infrared data from the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy.
This allows some of the most distant galaxies and black holes to be found.
Beyond visible light
Professor Banerji said:
Distant objects slip out of the visible spectrum into the infrared, which means lots of exciting astronomical phenomena are not picked up in optical surveys such as LSST.
Objects covered in dust that often appear faintly in optical surveys are also detected in the infrared.
The software being developed by the Southampton team will be available to the public.
Allowing any astronomer, professional or amateur, to process data from their preferred telescope or camera through the LSST data-processing pipeline.
Revealing the faintest cosmos
Professor Sugata Kaviraj, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Hertfordshire, has led an innovation with Liverpool John Moores University.
This will significantly enhance LSST’s ability to study the evolution of the observable Universe.
The work focuses on data analysis in the low surface brightness (LSB) regime, covering astronomical objects or regions that are extremely faint and largely undetectable in past surveys.
The team has built software that makes the Rubin data-processing pipeline sensitive to images containing faint, diffuse light.
This provides the means to correctly process and catalogue them for use by the global community.
Seeing how galaxies grow
Professor Karivaj said:
By enabling access to the LSB regime, we have significantly boosted the science potential of the LSST, enabling scientists to study how galaxies and galaxy clusters actually grow and assemble.
Our present understanding of galaxies is the tip of the iceberg; the low surface brightness (LSB) regime contains more material than the bright regime and has barely been explored.
The innovation focuses on crowded fields such as the Milky Way, with an eye to young star-forming regions and stellar clusters, it will also be a valuable tool for astronomers.
Connecting the cosmic dots
Dr Tom J. Wilson, a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Exeter, has developed software that uses advanced algorithms to identify reliable counterparts to Rubin images created by existing surveys.
By cross-matching different datasets, the software enhances the scientific capabilities of the LSST.
He said:
While across the community, including those interested in galaxies, active galactic nuclei (AGN) and strong lensing.
Now that the LSST has started, I’m keen to see how this software will enable science that we can’t yet predict. One key area for discovery is where the Rubin image does not correlate with data from an existing survey. The potential for the community to find new classes of object is interesting.
Unprecedented dataset of the sky
During its 10-year survey, Rubin will catalogue an estimated 17 billion stars, 20 billion galaxies, and millions of events that change in the sky.
This is more objects than there are living people on earth.
The survey is expected to create up to 500 petabytes of data in its lifetime.
The UK is playing a significant role in the management and processing of this unprecedented dataset.
The UK’s LSST data facility will process 25% of the data from Rubin, turning raw images of the sky into the calibrated data products with which astronomers can do science.
It will also operate a science platform capable of supporting analysis of those data products by 20% of the international LSST community.
Celestial alerts in real-time
The UK’s LSST computing facility also hosts the Lasair event broker.
A software system supporting the near-real-time analysis of the alerts that Rubin issues whenever it detects a moving celestial source.
This alert stream started flowing in February, ahead of today’s formal start of the 10-year LSST.
It can comprise millions of alerts each night, covering a wide range of astrophysical objects, from nearby asteroids to distant supernovae.
A decade of preparation
Professor Bob Mann, Professor of Survey Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh, is the Project Leader for UK participation in the Rubin LSST. He said:
Today marks the start of the 10-year LSST, but it is more like the mid-point of our UK project.
Researchers in the UK have been preparing for more than a decade for the data that is starting to flow today and the contributions we are making will enhance the science that can be done with it over the coming decade or more by astronomers around the world.
100 times more powerful
Professor Graham Smith, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Birmingham said:
The beginning of Rubin’s LSST is a huge moment for everyone in the UK and around the world who is curious about how the universe works, and the fundamental laws of nature.
This beautiful telescope and survey is 100 times more powerful for new discoveries than anything that has gone before, across the solar system, our own galaxy the Milky Way, galaxies and black holes in the distant universe, the most violent cosmic explosions, and mysteries such as dark matter and dark energy.
I’m really excited to see what our early career researchers and students discover in the coming years with LSST data, and to share this with the public.
Further information
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science.
