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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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This post is reserved for an index to posts that may be contributed by NewMars members.
Index:
Post #3 by Calliban: report on Vera Rubin and discussion of asteroid rotation.
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 67#p237467
Post #6 by Calliban: report on discover of a possible dwarf planet beyond Pluto
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 59#p242459
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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.”
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.
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New dwarf planet candidate identified by Vera Rubin telescope!
https://www.nsf.gov/news/new-dwarf-plan … -doe-rubin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_ED138
2026 ED138 is estimated to have diameter 600 - 1500km. The wide range is due to uncertainty in the albedo of the object.
Last edited by Calliban (2026-10-27 17:24:36)
"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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With thanks to Calliban for #6, here is another take on the newly discovered dwarf planet:
‘It’s big’: Astronomers make startling discovery of a possible dwarf planet beyond Pluto
By
Jacopo PriscoUpdated 18 hr ago
The orbital path of a newly discovered dwarf planet candidate, ED138, observed by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA
Astronomers have spotted a new dwarf planet candidate in the solar system, beyond the orbit of Pluto, which they provisionally named ED138.
If future observations confirm the discovery, ED138 will join a group currently made up of five dwarf planets that have been recognized by the International Astronomical Union, or IAU: Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake and Eris.
The finding is the result of detections made by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, a new telescope that sits atop a 2,682-meter-tall (8,800-foot-tall) mountain in Chile and houses the world’s largest digital camera. The telescope started operating in 2025 and is capable of imaging the entire sky every three days.
The orbit of ED138 compared with the solar system's gas giants. NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA/R. Proctor
Matthew Holman, a Smithsonian senior astrophysicist and lecturer in astronomy at Harvard University, ran a computer program he codeveloped to comb through data collected by Rubin earlier in 2026, scanning billions of detections of moving objects. When ED138 popped up, Holman said he first reacted with “excited disbelief,” and immediately checked for a false positive or an error with the computer program.To confirm the observation, Holman, who is also a Rubin Operations team member, worked with his colleague Mario Jurić, the Rubin Solar System lead scientist and a professor in the department of astronomy at the University of Washington. Jurić looked for more observations of ED138 in Rubin’s catalog, and found 20 additional ones dating back to March 2026. Eventually, using other sources, the researchers were able to plot the orbit of the object as far back as 10 years.
However, Holman warns, ED138 isn’t officially a dwarf planet yet: “At this point, it’s still a candidate. We really need to know how physically big it is, and that will take a few months, probably.”
A mosaic of images captured by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory of the newly discovered dwarf planet candidate. NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA
ED138 unveiled
ED138’s diameter is estimated to be between 600 and 1,500 kilometers (370 and 930 miles), which would make it bigger than the smallest of the recognized dwarf planets, Ceres. It currently orbits the sun at a distance of about 46 astronomical units — with each unit representing the average distance between Earth and the sun. That means ED138 is farther away than Pluto and also a trans-Neptunian object, or TNO — a class of objects that orbit the sun at a distance greater than Neptune’s.In the night sky, ED138 is not visible with the naked eye but “is bright enough that really capable amateurs can see it if they know where to look,” according to Holman.
Part of the reason scientists hadn’t discovered ED138 before is because it’s in the southern hemisphere, and therefore very difficult to observe from the northern hemisphere, Holman noted.
“That already rules out whole sets of telescopes that might have found this, and there aren’t as many telescopes searching the sky in the southern hemisphere,” he said.
Another factor that kept ED138 hidden is that it is on the same plane as our galaxy. “For the last 20 years, the object has kind of been looping its way across the Milky Way, from our point of view,” Holman explained. “People don’t typically search for things in the Milky Way, because there’s so many stars that it’s really hard to find moving objects.”
The new dwarf planet candidate joins the Rubin telescope’s growing list of detected objects — largely asteroids and much smaller TNOs. According to Holman, there might be “a handful” more objects the size of ED138, and Rubin should eventually find those, too.
“Rubin Observatory is just doing its job really well, inventorying the Solar System to new depths,” said Megan Schwamb, a reader in astrophysics at Queen’s University Belfast and a member of the Rubin Solar System Operations team, in an email.
“I was surprised that it found such an object so early in the commissioning observations. This was not on my bingo card for this year,” Schwamb added. “It shows how Rubin’s combination of speed, depth, and sky coverage is going to transform our view of the Solar System over the next decade and especially in the next few years.”
A view of the solar system showing the orbital pathway of ED138 and those of the five dwarf planets. NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA/R. Proctor
‘Think of it as a world’
In 2006, the IAU adopted a new definition of planet, describing it as an object that orbits the sun, is mostly round, and is big enough that it has cleared its orbit of objects of similar size. Scientists made the controversial decision to demote Pluto, because it didn’t satisfy the last requirement, and our solar system went from nine to eight planets.
At the same time, Pluto and its ilk became known as dwarf planets — nearly round objects that orbit the sun but aren’t large enough to have cleared their own orbits of debris.
If ED138 is confirmed as a new dwarf planet, astronomers will first give it a permanent number and then an actual name, although the process could take time, and the details of who exactly will get to choose the name are still unclear.
“People have already emailed me some suggestions, and some of them are already taken by other objects,” Holman said. “I don’t know. It’ll be fun. Maybe I’ll get to suggest something, but I’m not going to hold my breath, because this is a big, big project.”
The finding is significant for the field, said Michele Bannister, an associate professor at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, who was not involved with the discovery of ED138.
The object is “scientifically really cool because it’s a trans-Neptunian object and it’s also physically quite large, but still a lot fainter than you can see with the naked eye,” said Bannister, who studies the small worlds of the solar system.
The size of the object is just within the range where we can start to think of it as a world, she added, and other telescopes will now pick up the baton to find out more about it.
“Maybe if we ever fly a spacecraft there, we’ll find it has a nitrogen glacier like Pluto,” Bannister said. “That would be great to see. But at the moment, all we know is that it’s big, and the rest is going to be speculation for a little bit, about what its physical characteristics really are.”
From CNN's online service.
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