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This topic is available for NewMars members who might wish to help to assemble links, images and text about the new observatory for an all sky survey.
The article at the link below reports on discovery of asteroids in the first seven days of operation.
https://www.livescience.com/space/astro … servations
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Post #3 by Calliban: report on Vera Rubin and discussion of asteroid rotation.
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 67#p237467
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This telescope started operation in 2025. It is expected to detect hundreds of thousands of new small bodies in the solar system.
One interesting recent discovery is a main belt asteroid some 710m in diameter, rotating once every 1.88 minutes. That is a surface velocity of 19.8m/s.
https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/news … -2025-mn45
It occurs to me that rapidly rotating bodies like this could provide free energy accelerating spacecraft onto different orbits. They are also potential weapons in a future solar system. Using this body in particular, a tether with a length of 101 asteroid radii (35.85km) would have a tip speed of 2km/s. Such a tether could hurl projectiles onto trajectories that would collide with planets and space colonies. This would be relatively cheap and technically easy to do.
Something like this was featured in the sci-fi series The Expanse. The Belters hurled space rocks and lumps of iron onto a collision course with Earth. They coated them with stealth tech composites to prevent them from being detected and taken out by nuclear tipped missiles and rail guns before impact. Using rapidly rotating asteroids as slings, this sort of thing could actually happen in the centuries ahead. In the nearer future, tapping asteroid rotation can be used to reduce the propulsive dV needed to bring ores mined on asteroids back to Earth orbit.
Edit SpaceNut: Copied your post before closing the other one.
Last edited by SpaceNut (2026-01-21 18:18:02)
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
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This post is about a research group that is looking forward to the Rubin Observatory results....
The article from which this was quoted is about a theory that dark matter and neutrinos may collide occasionally, and those collisions over a few million years may have contributed to the lumpy nature of the observed Universe.
"The final verdict will come from upcoming large sky surveys, such as those from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, and more precise theoretical work," research team leader Sebastian Trojanowski, a theoretical physicist at the National Centre for Nuclear Research in Poland, explained in a separate statement. "These will allow us to determine whether we are witnessing a new discovery in the dark sector or whether our cosmological models require further adjustment. However, each of these scenarios brings us closer to solving the mystery of dark matter."
Article SourcesZu, L., Giarè, W., Zhang, C. et al. A solution to the S8 tension through neutrino–dark matter interactions. Nat Astron (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-025-02733-1
https://www.livescience.com/physics-mat … n-interact
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This CNN report is about the early trials of the Vera C Cubin Observatory after a slow, careful startup process.
URL here >> https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/01/science/ … e-and-time
‘The greatest cosmic movie ever made’: Historic telescope kicks off an unprecedented survey
By
Jackie Wattles
Updated 20 hr ago
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is located in the Coquimbo region of northern Chile. Hernan Stockebrand/NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA16
Every 40 seconds of nighttime for the next 10 years, a camera the size of a small car will capture strikingly detailed images of the southern sky, stitching together a time-lapse panorama of intergalactic evolution that could help unlock some of the universe’s lingering mysteries.The historic effort, called the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), began on Tuesday, according to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, the state-of-the-art facility in Chile that houses the world’s largest digital camera weighing 6,600 pounds.
During its decade-long study, a series of colored filters will give the camera superhuman vision as it scans the sky each night and creates a living image of how celestial objects — from asteroids to supernovae — morph and move.
The “color-rich” images of exploding stars, black holes and cosmic collisions will also help direct the attention of other observatories around the world, according to a news release, allowing various institutions to work in tandem to collect wholistic observations of notable celestial events.
The Rubin Observatory team began taking preliminary images with the LSST Camera on April 15, 2025. H. Stockebrand/RubinObs/NSF/DOE/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA
The project has several goals, including creating a new inventory of our solar system and the Milky Way, as well as chipping away at the mystery of dark matter by observing the distorted light of distant galaxies.
“Today, we begin filming the greatest cosmic movie ever made,” said Brian Stone, who is currently performing the duties of the vacant US National Science Foundation director role, in a Tuesday statement. “This moment reflects decades of vision, innovation and the power of federal investment.”
Bringing the universe to life
The "Ocean of Stars" 1.7-gigapixel image of the constellation Lupus showcases Rubin's unprecedented view. NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURAJointly funded by the US National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy, the $800 million Rubin Observatory sits perched on the 8,800-foot-high (2,682-meter-high) summit of the Cerro Pachón mountain in northern Chile. The site’s dark skies and dry air make it one of the world’s most optimal spots for stargazing.
After the observatory captured its first images last year, the LSST was anticipated to begin by early 2026. But checkouts took longer than expected.
“The decision to officially begin the LSST was made after a period of system optimization and a careful operational review of technical readiness, data system performance and scientific validation,” said Željko Ivezić, head of LSST, in a statement. “Important factors that played a role in this decision included image quality, effective survey speed, system uptime and reliability, and calibration accuracy.”
Each night, the observatory’s camera will capture thousands of images, completing a full scan of the southern sky every few days. Throughout its decade-long survey, the telescope will be able to return to the same spot in the night sky hundreds of times, creating a living image of how each patch of observable star systems and galaxies evolves. The long-term effort will allow scientists to study rare and difficult-to-detect events like never before.
“Rubin is bringing the universe to life, illuminating a treasure trove of discoveries: pulsating stars, supernova explosions, the fossil record of galaxies, clues to the mysteries of dark energy and dark matter, and entirely new phenomena never seen before,” the observatory team shared in a news release.
This image combines 678 separate images taken by the Rubin Observatory in just over seven hours of observing time. NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory
Through images taken to help optimize the new system, the observatory has already detected 11,000 new asteroids and logged dozens of other new objects in our solar system.
As the observatory’s timelapse unfolds, researchers will use AI and machine learning to filter the data and detect notable changes across time. Scientists expect the system will dispatch about 7 million alerts to flag interesting movements, explosions or notable phenomena every night.
“When the LSST is complete, the final dataset will contain billions of objects with trillions of measurements, all accessible through regular data releases,” according to the observatory’s news release. “This is the first time so much astronomical data will be available to so many people, opening the door to new kinds of discoveries by both scientists and the public.”
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