The Biggest Sky Survey Ever Undertaken: Exploring the Universe with the Rubin Observatory (with Dr. Phil Marshall)

Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures

The Vera Rubin Observatory will house a survey telescope that will image the night sky faster and deeper than ever before. Its camera, at 3.6 Gigapixels, will be the biggest digital camera ever built. The Rubin Observatory will be able to image the entire visible sky every few nights, and build up, over 10 years, a 900-frame full color movie of the deep night sky. This will enable a wide variety of scientific explorations, from the outer reaches of our Solar System, through our Milky Way Galaxy and its dark matter halo, and out into the extra-galactic universe, where we hope to see new types of cosmic explosions and the weird effects of the mysterious Dark Energy. Dr. Phil Marshall (of Stanford University) gives a guided tour of the Observatory, describes the planned sky survey, discusess the challenges of doing astronomy at petabyte scale, and shows how we can all take part in Rubin's voyage of discovery.