Announcements

20 February 2025: Last week twenty members of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN COPUOS) — the top UN body for civilian space-related matters — took the floor to discuss the agenda item on dark and quiet skies, demonstrating its growing importance. The discussion included remarks on the need to find balanced solutions, the urgent need for nations to support research on mitigations, considerations on the cultural heritage of the night sky, and the importance of space sustainability discussions within international bodies. In attendance were members of the IAU Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky from Satellite Constellation Interference (IAU CPS), which is co-hosted by NSF NOIRLab and the SKAO. Securing an agenda item at the subcommittee is a significant success for the astronomy community, and the culmination of many years of coordinated action by astronomers to have the issue discussed at the …

12 February 2025: Project & Science News The LSST Camera was removed from the summit clean room on February 4th and then moved from its support stand to the camera rotator the following day. This marks the first time that the LSST Camera has been integrated with (a part of) the telescope! While the Commissioning Camera — which was previously installed on the camera rotator — has the same interface, the LSST Camera is outfitted with a new cooling system. This system includes vacuum insulated hoses which need to be properly managed during the motion from the camera cable wrap (CCW), camera rotator and the camera hexapod. Over the next couple of weeks, the Camera team will be testing the performance of this additional system on the camera rotator motion systems. Photos of the LSST Camera move are available in the Gallery. The LSST Camera group has released a technote (https://sitcomtn-148.lsst.io) on results …

29 January 2025: Project & Science News Rubin representatives had a busy and productive week at the American Astronomical Society Winter Meeting (AAS 245) in National Harbor, MD on January 12-16. Rubin’s exhibit booth hosted many enthusiastic visitors and the Rubin Town Hall, held on January 14th, was very well attended. Slides from the Town Hall presentation are available on Zenodo. Concurrent with the Town Hall, Rubin released a website article about the successful conclusion of tests with Rubin’s Commissioning Camera, along with an engineering test image. Along with the positive response from those in the room, the news got immediate amplification from a Space.com reporter attending the session. A panel of Rubin experts presented to an audience of media and science writers at AAS 245. Sandrine Thomas, Leanne Guy, Yusra AlSayaad, and Beth Willman provided an overview of Rubin Observatory and upcoming Rubin science, managing Rubin data, and Rubin’s global participation and …

14 January 2025: After ten years of construction, NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory is less than one year away from the start of its transformational movie of our changing night sky. In preparation for this monumental production, the observatory has just successfully completed a series of full-system tests using an engineering test camera. This accomplishment sets the stage for the last step of Rubin construction: installation of the 3200-megapixel LSST Camera (LSSTCam) — the largest digital camera in the world. Rubin Observatory is jointly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. Rubin is a joint Program of NSF NOIRLab and DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, who will cooperatively operate Rubin. The engineering test camera, or commissioning camera (ComCam), has a mosaic of nine CCD sensors with a total of 144 megapixels. It covers an area about twice that of a full Moon. Over the …

10 January 2025: The January 2025 issue of The NOIRLab Mirror is now available. This biannual publication focuses on news and scientific content from across NOIRLab, which is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). Dive into stories that showcase the science, technology, and developments from the five NSF NOIRLab Programs: the Community Science and Data Center (CSDC), Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), the International Gemini Observatory, Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), and NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory Operations. This issue features a collection of science highlights spanning the breadth of NOIRLab facilities and Programs, tutorials on data reduction with the Python-based meta-package DRAGONS, a feature on IGRINS-2 — the first new facility instrument at Gemini North since 2005 — reflections on two conferences held in 2023 and 2024 aimed at discussing the future of Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs), an exciting recap of last year’s achievements for the nearly-complete Vera C. Rubin …

20 December 2024: Project and Science News Rubin has had a busy and eventful year, and 2024 is drawing to a close. We wish everyone a safe and restful holiday to prepare for next year, and for the approaching finish line of Rubin Construction. We hope you enjoy Rubin’s 2024 holiday card. We hope to see many of you at the American Astronomical Society (AAS) winter meeting (AAS 245) in National Harbor, MD on January 12-16. The Rubin Town Hall is scheduled for Tuesday, January 14th. Rubin will also be presenting a panel for media and science writers during the meeting, please check the AAS schedule for the date and time. And don’t forget to stop by Rubin’s exhibit booth (#105A in the NSF Pavilion)! Rubin leadership and staff joined representatives from NOIRLab, AURA, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science for …

27 November 2024: Project and Science News Project reminder: November 28-29 are Thanksgiving US holidays for Rubin with US staff likely unavailable/offline. The Commissioning team continues to share technical updates on the progress of on-sky commissioning activities using the Commissioning Camera (ComCam) on the Rubin Community Forum and the #commissioning-updates Slack channel. Highlights curated for a non-technical audience will also be posted on Rubin’s social media accounts. Rubin staff provided several impactful activities at the recent annual meeting of La Sociedad Chilena de Astronomía (SOCHIAS), held November 11-15 in Arica, Chile’s northernmost city. Education and Public Outreach team members Fernanda Urrutia and Ardis Herrold led a teacher training session on Rubin’s “Coloreando el Universo” investigation, which was attended by a roomful of enthusiastic educators. Holger Drass, Verification Systems Engineer for Rubin, gave a talk about Rubin and supported outreach efforts at the AURA-O exhibit booth. The Chilean scientific community continues to show a …

21 November 2024: For four years the NEID (rhymes with fluid) spectrograph, mounted on the WIYN 3.5-meter Telescope at U.S. National Science Foundation Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), a Program of NSF NOIRLab, has been delivering on one of its main science goals — to confirm exoplanet candidates from other exoplanet missions and characterize both newly confirmed and known planets. But NEID is also carrying out a larger program called the NEID Earth Twin Survey (NETS). NETS is aimed at pushing exoplanet detection beyond the limits of pre-NEID instruments with the specific goal of searching around bright, nearby stars for low-mass exoplanets that weren’t detectable before. NEID is now delivering on this goal as the first instrument to confirm and characterize exoplanet HD 86728 b. The team, led by postdoctoral researcher and NOIRLab astronomer Arvind Gupta, presents these results in a paper to appear in AAS Journals. NEID is optimized to observe an …

11 November 2024: Together with the other Maunakea Observatories (MKOs), and a collection of STEM organizations, the International Gemini Observatory, funded in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation and operated by NSF NOIRLab, celebrated the annual AstroDay Kona. On Saturday, 2 November 2024, friends and families of all ages were invited to the free event held outdoors at the Kona Commons Shopping Center in Kailua-Kona, Hawai‘i. AstroDay Kona provided an estimated 600 visitors with the opportunity to learn about the Universe and the spectacular discoveries made by Gemini and the other telescopes on Maunakea. Like the Annual AstroDay in Hilo each May, this event is led by the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy. To share the wonders of the cosmos that inspire astronomy research, observatory staff presented the community with special science demonstrations, activities and informative exhibitions, including dozens of free images, hands on optics demonstrations, and exoplanet crafts! More information …

6 November 2024: Project and Science News Rubin achieved a historic milestone on October 24th, 2024, when the summit team captured the first on-sky data with Rubin’s Commissioning Camera and transferred it from Chile to the US Data Facility at SLAC. This successful end-to-end engineering test is the product of decades of dedication and innovation by Rubin Project members and the community. Read the details in Rubin’s public announcement on rubinobservatory.org. Additional visuals are available in the Gallery. During the periods of on-sky commissioning using the Commissioning Camera (ComCam) and LSST Camera (LSSTCam), Rubin Observatory plans to share brief technical updates on the progress of on-sky commissioning activities with the Rubin science community on a roughly weekly cadence. These posts will complement existing communications products. Posts will appear on the LSST Community forum in the News category with the commissioning-updates tag and on the LSSTC Slack workspace in the new #commissioning-updates channel. Rubin …

5 November 2024: More than 1300 students and 80 teachers participated in the activities of Viaje al Universo 2024, which took place from 21–25 October in La Serena and Vicuña in Chile. Viaje is one of NSF NOIRLab’s core educational programs, whose main goal is to bring astronomers, scientists, engineers and the staff of our observatories into the local classrooms. This year’s program included 41 activities implemented in 5 schools of La Serena and Vicuña by a group of 26 volunteers. All the activities of Viaje are aligned with the Chilean educational curriculum in order to provide a tangible contribution to the teaching and learning of science, physics and astronomy in Chile. Teachers and students were excited by all of the engaging activities, which included solar telescope observations, dark sky awareness experience, as well as workshops to learn about the Solar System, the life cycle of stars, galaxies, robotics, and much more. These …

28 October 2024: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory passed its first end-to-end engineering test using a low-resolution testing camera known as the Commissioning Camera. The Commissioning Camera will later be replaced with the much higher resolution LSST Camera, the largest digital camera ever built, which Rubin Observatory will use to conduct the most comprehensive data-gathering mission in the history of astronomy — the 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time. Rubin is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. The mood in the observatory control room was electric as Rubin’s first on-sky data were captured by the test camera and transferred successfully from the observatory in Chile to the U.S. Data Facility at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California. This moment was the culmination of decades of hard work by the Rubin team. Those present in Chile gathered at the base of the Simonyi Telescope …

17 October 2024: Between 30 September and 3 October NSF NOIRLab hosted the First Gigayear(s) Conference at the Hilo Hawaiian Hotel. This conference brought together experts in a variety of fields to discuss the Universe’s first few billion years of evolution, and the galaxies, black holes, stars, chemicals, and large-scale structure that formed during that time. A considerable portion of the conference was also focused on discussions of the historical, geographical, and cultural context surrounding astronomical activities on Maunakea and the interface between the Maunakea Observatories and the local community at large. These discussions were paired with activities throughout the conference that focused on the culture, beauty, and diversity of Hawai‘i. Adding to the ongoing community conversation about these topics, NOIRLab hosted two discussion panels featuring observatory directors and project managers, the director of ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center (‘Imiloa) — the world’s only native astronomy center — and experts in community building and outreach. …

16 October 2024: Project and Science News Rubin officially has a complete telescope on Cerro Pachón after the Primary/Tertiary Mirror (M1M3) Cell Assembly was installed by the summit team last week. With the Secondary Mirror (M2) and the 144-megapixel Commissioning Camera in place on the telescope mount, it won’t be long before Rubin takes its first on-sky observations. Read the details about this major achievement on rubinobservatory.org. Shortly after the M1M3 installation, Rubin announced the naming of its state-of-the-art telescope as the Simonyi Survey Telescope. This celebratory event at the Rubin Observatory Summit Facility on Cerro Pachón in Chile was attended by the Simonyi family, Rubin Observatory leadership, representatives of NSF and DOE, and other guests. Read more about it in this press release issued on October 11th. Preparing for the M1M3 installation took many months of integration and weeks of intense preparation, including load testing for the critical transport to level 8 …

14 October 2024: In early October, the team on Cerro Pachón installed Rubin Observatory's 8.4-meter combined primary/tertiary mirror (M1M3) on the Simonyi Survey Telescope for the first time. This is a huge achievement in itself, and — with all three mirrors and the commissioning camera (ComCam) now in place — Rubin Observatory officially has a complete telescope! After getting this configuration of the telescope on-sky and conducting several months of testing, the summit team will remove the 144-megapixel ComCam and install the final science component: the car-sized, 3200 megapixel LSST Camera. Getting the M1M3 on the telescope involved months of intensive work and contributions from many members of the Rubin team as well as contracted workers on the summit. As always, safety was the top priority in all activities to protect personnel and to prevent damage to the delicate glass mirror. Prior to the installation (and after being coated with protected silver in …

3 October 2024: Have you ever wondered what might happen to our Solar System in a few billion years? The Sun will eventually turn into a white dwarf — a dead remnant of its current self — consuming the inner planets along the way. Some white dwarfs are surrounded by dusty disks containing asteroids, comets, and other remnants of their planetary systems. These disks are excellent laboratories for studying the end stage of planetary systems, providing unique information about the formation and death of planets. To help search for examples of asteroids orbiting white dwarfs in the Milky Way, NSF NOIRLab has launched the Exoasteroids citizen science project. With the help of volunteers, this project is aimed at identifying white dwarfs that have changed in brightness over the past decade. Such fluctuations may indicate that a white dwarf is the remnant of a planetary system still actively destroying its lingering exoasteroids, leading to …

3 October 2024: Project and Science News The seventh in a series of Rubin science releases showcasing Rubin’s upcoming contributions to various areas of astronomy and astrophysics is now available. Read (in English or Spanish) and share “Rubin Observatory’s Unparalleled Vision Will Revolutionize Multi-Messenger Astronomy,” on rubinobservatory.org A successful LSST@Europe6 meeting took place on the island of La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain, from September 16-20. A notable number of early-career scientists participated in the meeting, a good indicator that Rubin is generating excitement and will have a tremendous impact on the next decade of scientific research. A particular focus of discussions was on synergies between Rubin and other projects such as ESA’s Euclid, as well as with In-kind contribution teams based in Europe and globally. A group photo from the meeting is available in the Gallery. Rubin Observatory has updated the statement regarding increased deployment of satellite constellations at this link. In early …

2 October 2024: Multi-messenger astronomy is a powerful new tool for exploring the cosmos that combines the information from multiple types of signals to understand a single astronomical source or event. The four messengers that astronomers study are light, cosmic rays, neutrinos and gravitational waves. Because a source can change rapidly, it’s critical that observations of these messengers occur simultaneously or within a short time span so that astronomers capture their properties before the source changes. However, it’s quite the challenge to coordinate follow-up from multiple optical observatories across the globe — each with its own instruments — while minimizing duplication and maximizing the value of the combined dataset. That’s why the U.S. National Science Foundation has awarded $2 million in funding to the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and the Center for AstroPhysical Surveys (CAPS), in collaboration with NSF NOIRLab and Las Cumbres Observatory, to build a service that allows researchers …

30 September 2024: Join us at the U.S. National Science Foundation Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), a program of NSF NOIRLab, for two unforgettable nighttime experiences brought back by popular demand: the Magnificent Moon Program and the Dark Sky Discovery Program. Located on a sacred Tohono O’odham Nation sky island, KPNO sits high above the Sonoran Desert in a unique mountain environment. Enjoy breathtaking views of the night sky and an intimate connection to nature through the rich flora, fauna, and fascinating geology of the region. Magnificent Moon Program: Embark on a fascinating, guided journey across the lunar surface. Using powerful telescopes, you’ll explore craters, mountains, maria, rilles, and the locations of the Apollo landings sites in incredible detail like you have never seen before. This experience is run on nights of the month that are close to the full Moon, ensuring excellent lunar vistas. This program generally uses the KPVC Roll Off …

20 September 2024: At the U.S. National Science Foundation Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, a Program of NSF NOIRLab, is a collection of four small telescopes known as the Small and Moderate Aperture Research Telescope System (SMARTS). Between 2003 and 2023, the SMARTS Consortium operated a 0.9-meter Telescope, a 1.0-meter Telescope, a 1.3-meter Telescope, and a 1.5-meter Telescope. The partners of the original SMARTS Consortium were the American Museum of Natural History, the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), the University of Delaware, Georgia State University, Ohio State University, the Space Telescope Science Institute, Stony Brook University, Vanderbilt University/Fisk Observatory and Yale University. SMARTS is continuing in a new two-facet structure and the telescopes and their work will live on under two different entities. The 1.5-meter and 0.9-meter will be operated by the Georgia State University Research Foundation and will be known as SMARTS-GSU. University of North Carolina and the …