The Vera Rubin Observatory has officially begun operations in Chile, and it's poised to transform our understanding of the universe. To explore what makes this observatory so groundbreaking, we sat down with Dr. Britt Lundgren, astronomer and professor at UNC Asheville. In this episode, we talk about Rubin’s ambitious goal: to photograph the entire southern sky every four nights using an ultra-powerful telescope and a record-breaking 3,200-megapixel camera. Named after pioneering astronomer Vera Rubin, the observatory will help track asteroids, monitor changing celestial objects like variable stars and supernovas, offering new clues about the universe’s structure and our cosmic origins.

Want to know more about the Vera Rubin Observatory?

https://www.lsst.org

Technical paper from 1979 showing Vera Rubin and collaborators results about rotational curves in spiral galaxies and its consequences

https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1978ApJ...225L.107R/abstract