With a resolution above 3.2 gigapixels, a nearly three-ton weight and the ambitious task of carrying out an unprecedented decade-long exploration, the largest digital camera ever built for optical astronomy is ready to be installed under the clear skies of northern Chile.
The pieces required to assemble the Vera C. Rubin Observatory - which includes a ground-based telescope and the camera - travelled in several vehicles to the summit of Cerro Pachón in the Coquimbo region, on the edge of the Atacama desert, some 565 kilometres north of Santiago.
"Everything that we needed for operations [is] now on the summit and ready for checkout and hopefully for installation a little bit later this year," said Stuartt Corder, chief science officer of the AURA association of universities and deputy director of the NOIRLab centre, which will operate the observatory.
According to its website, the Rubin Observatory is a complex, integrated system consisting of an eight-meter wide-field ground-based telescope, the camera, and an automated data processing system.
The result might not depart from what we already know, but they will help refining our understanding of the universe, Corder said.
AURA is a consortium of 47 USinstitutions and three international affiliates that operate astronomical observatories for the National Science Foundation and NASA. It is responsible for managing, among others, the NOIRLab centre.
Chile hosts much of the world's investment in astronomy thanks to the clear skies of its Atacama Desert, the driest desert on earth.
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