NSF-DOE Rubin Observatory

The moment we've all been waiting for is finally here… On June 29, 2026, NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory officially began the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST)! 🔗: rubinobservatory.org/news/action-ru…

A pair of Gatos Andinos, which are extremely rare Andean mountain cats, were recently spotted down the ridge from NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory near the 4-m SOAR Telescope. Because they live in such remote mountain terrain, seeing them up close is a rare treat 🐱 📷: SOAR Day Crew

Over the next decade, Rubin will reveal nearly 1 million of them, helping scientists measure how the Universe has expanded through cosmic history, and test whether dark energy has changed over time. If it has…we may need to rethink the history of the cosmos itself 🤯

What if the Universe isn't the age we think it is? 😱 That possibility hinges on one of the biggest mysteries in astrophysics: dark energy. Meet NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory scientist Anaïs Möller, who studies exploding stars called Type Ia supernovae.

Before a night of discovery begins, there's this 🌅 NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory basks in a sunset glow in this @noirlabastro #ImageOfTheWeek, captured in June 2025. Rubin's Chile site was chosen because of its exceptional observing conditions, but it's also not a bad office view!

NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory is the next step, bringing in the era of big-data survey astronomy. Rubin is the most powerful survey observatory ever built, capable of not only capturing the entire southern sky, but doing it on repeat every few nights for a decade!

Then we developed CCDs and digital detectors, which turned light into precise data that computers could analyze. Around the turn of the century, advances in software and computing made large-scale sky surveys possible for the first time.

How it started, and how it's going ✨ Astronomy used to mean studying a single object at a time, often by eye or through early telescopes. Then came photographic plates, which let us capture the sky for later study. 🧵

Fireworks from the cosmos🎆 Happy #FourthOfJuly! The colors in NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory's Ocean of Stars are both scientific & beautiful, and tell us about the stars' properties. Hot, massive stars burn blue-white, while cool or old stars glow red. 🔗: skyviewer.app

9. It’s a community-built survey 👥👥👥 10. The discoveries will be global 🌎🌍🌏 Learn even more about LSST at rubinobservatory.org/explore/how-ru…! . . . 📷: NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA

5. It will produce massive amounts of data 📈 6. It will generate millions of alerts every night 🚨 7. It will catalog billions of objects 🌟🌀☄️💥 8. It’s driven by software 💻

An observatory built to see it all. NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory was built to conduct the decade-long Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). Here are ten things to know about LSST! 🔭🧪 🧵

The scheduler sets the next pointings based on environmental conditions, science priorities, and existing sky coverage. This means Rubin can optimize sky coverage on the fly and collect the best data possible all night, every night! 🎥: NSF–DOE RubinObs/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA

What do we mean when we say NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory will scan the sky? This visualization shows what a typical week of the 10-year survey looks like. The survey runs via a smart algorithm called a scheduler that dynamically determines where Rubin points next.

@sfjcody ☄️

@VRubinObs Bring on the deluge of minor planets!

The start of a new survey of the Universe? That deserves a new view of the cosmos 🌌 Meet the Ocean of Stars, NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory's newest wide-field image. 🔗: rubinobservatory.org/gallery/image-…

@is_OwenLewis This is in the direction of the constellation Lupus, off-plane from the Milky Way but still nearby

@VRubinObs What part of the galaxy are we looking at here?

NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory's new Ocean of Stars image is packed full, but where to start? Our new Skyviewer tour introduces you to some of the objects hiding in plain sight. Knowing where to look is half the fun! skyviewer.app/tours/ocean-ge… 📷: NSF–DOE RubinObs/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA

@JfkWhitlam @ESA_Euclid @NASARoman Not yet but we’re just getting started! Our scientific community is already hard at work not only readying for Rubin data, but also readying to combine this incredible dataset with others (including Euclid and Roman) to learn the most we can about the Universe.

@VRubinObs @ESA_Euclid Thank you, Is there a dataset from Rubin of the same area? A direct comparison, especially when @NASARoman launches will be very useful I think realistically, A large telescope mission building on pioneer 10 11 voyagers Leaving the solar system galactic north south Center,

@JfkWhitlam @ESA_Euclid The two images aren’t quite the same region - Ocean of Stars is off-plane from the galactic center a bit (though still near)

@VRubinObs Is there a comparison of the @ESA_Euclid galactic center?

Over the next ten years, Rubin will return to spots like this again and again, building dynamic record of the changing Universe. This is just the beginning!✨ rubinobservatory.org/news/action-ru…

This image is packed full with millions of stars in our own Milky Way 🌟 Millions more distant galaxies lie beyond them, each full of billions or trillions of stars. We even see the faint, ghostly clouds of interstellar dust known as "galactic cirrus" spread through our galaxy.