Humanity's Biggest Ever Camera Begins 10-Year Time-Lapse Of The Cosmos

Humanity's Biggest Ever Camera Begins 10-Year Time-Lapse Of The Cosmos describes the start of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). Located in Chile, the project begins a long-running effort intended to produce what it calls the “greatest cosmic movie ever made.” It uses the world’s largest 3,200-megapixel camera and an 8.4-meter telescope to repeatedly scan the southern sky. Over its first year, the survey is expected to generate more data than all prior optical observatories combined. The LSST aims to study phenomena including dark energy, dark matter, and galaxy evolution, while also functioning as an asteroid-finding system. The article notes that it has already identified 11,000 new asteroids. The broader program is described as a two-decade mission.