Don’t Blink: The Vera C. Rubin Observatory Is Revolutionizing Astronomy.

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By Caryl-Sue Micalizio, Eos/AGU. 

Excerpt: The awe-inducing Vera C. Rubin Observatory does not blink. From its sky-high altitude in the Chilean Andes, Rubin will image every point in the skies over the Southern Hemisphere 800 times over a 10-year period. The observatory is already issuing astronomers 800,000 alerts a night and eventually might send 10 million a night. “The whole field of astronomy is about to be completely revolutionized by this dataset,” says astronomer Sarah Greenstreet in Kimberly Cartier’s beautiful, breathless introduction to the observatory, “Small, Faint, or Fast, Rubin Will Find It.” So what is Rubin going to find? Asteroids. ...astronomers think Rubin might find 4 million more. Comets. Rubin’s unblinking eye will help astronomers trace comets and other trans-Neptunian objects in the icy reaches of the outer solar system. Planet 9. “This is the survey that will determine whether Planet 9 is real or not,” says astronomer Meghan Schwamb in Cartier’s feature. Rubin is far from the only instrument.... The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array is offering scientists nothing less than a “New View of the Solar System”. And astronomers have long realized the value of cataloging temporal variations in celestial objects. Transits, rotations, and orbital dynamics have helped astronomers identify hot Jupiters, cold Earths, and planets that just shouldn’t be there.... 

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