The Vera C. Rubin observatory, located at the top of a mountain in Chile, was built to observe the night sky in more detail and explore the hidden corners. Funded by the National Science Foundation and the American Department of Energy, he will observe the southern sky for the next 10 years.
Thousands of light years
The first images of the observatory show the trifid and lagoon nebulae, located thousands of light years from the earth. A light year is equivalent to almost 6000 billion kilometers. A group of galaxies known as the virgin clusters was also photographed, including two brilliant blue spirals.
The observatory hopes to photograph 20 billion galaxies and discover new asteroids and other celestial objects.
This project bears the name of the astronomer Vera Rubin, who provided the first intriguing evidence of the existence of a mysterious force called dark matter which could be hidden in the universe. The researchers hope that the sophisticated camera of the observatory will find clues to this elusive entity as well as on another called black energy.
