Uploaded July 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
AD - To try everything Brilliant has to offer for free for a full 30 days, visit brilliant.org/DrBecky and you'll also get 20% off an annual premium subscription | Us astronomers and astrophysicists have been waiting for this moment for a LONG time: the first images from the Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile were released this month and they are unlike anything we’ve seen before. First proposed back in 2001, and after 15 years of construction, this is a telescope that is now set to image the entire sky every 3 nights: if anything moves, changes, or flares in the sky, we will spot it with Rubin’s 8.4m telescope. Rubin is one of the most ambitious astronomy projects we’ve ever seen, not because of its size, but because of the sheer scale of what its going to attempt to do: image the entire sky every 3 nights for 10 years, slowly collecting more light to detect ever fainter objects. Its estimated that it will detect 20 billion objects in the sky over those 10 years, and flag 10 million things that change in the sky after each 3 day pass. In 10 years of operations, it will collect around 60 petabytes of data. But today I want to chat about these first images released from just 7 days of observing (that give us a taste of what we can expect over the next 10 years), detecting 2000 asteroids in just that tiny patch of sky in a short space of time!
Rubin DP1 research paper - rtn-095.lsst.io
Rubin Skyviewer App - https://skyviewer.app/
Download the first images for yourself - rubinobservatory.org/gallery/collections/first-look-gallery
My previous video on Rubin - youtube.com/watch?v=X3N-DjVXh44
Rubin Comet Catchers project - zooniverse.org/projects/orionnau/rubin-comet-catchers
Galaxy Zoo project - zooniverse.org/projects/zookeeper/galaxy-zoo
00:00 Introduction
02:21 What makes the Rubin images different from previous surveys of the sky?
08:12 Why do the stars look weird? Rainbow spikes & red circles
13:48 Wow that’s a lot of asteroids
19:05 Bloopers
Video filmed on a Sony ⍺7 IV
Video edited by Martino Gasparrini: fiverr.com/mgs_editing
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📚 My new book, "A Brief History of Black Holes", out NOW in hardback, paperback, e-book and audiobook (which I narrated myself!): lnk.to/DrBecky
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👕 My new merch, including JWST designs, are available here (with worldwide shipping!): dr-becky.teemill.com
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🎧 Royal Astronomical Society Podcast that I co-host: podfollow.com/supermassive
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🔔 Don't forget to subscribe and click the little bell icon to be notified when I post a new video!
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👩🏽💻 I'm Dr. Becky Smethurst, an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford (Christ Church). I love making videos about science with an unnatural level of enthusiasm. I like to focus on how we know things, not just what we know. And especially, the things we still don't know. If you've ever wondered about something in space and couldn't find an answer online - you can ask me! My day job is to do research into how supermassive black holes can affect the galaxies that they live in. In particular, I look at whether the energy output from the disk of material orbiting around a growing supermassive black hole can stop a galaxy from forming stars.
drbecky.uk.com
AD - To try everything Brilliant has to offer for free for a full 30 days, visit brilliant.org/DrBecky and you'll also get 20% off an annual premium subscription | Us astronomers and astrophysicists have been waiting for this moment for a LONG time: the first images from the Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile were released this month and they are unlike anything we’ve seen before. First proposed back in 2001, and after 15 years of construction, this is a telescope that is now set to image the entire sky every 3 nights: if anything moves, changes, or flares in the sky, we will spot it with Rubin’s 8.4m telescope. Rubin is one of the most ambitious astronomy projects we’ve ever seen, not because of its size, but because of the sheer scale of what its going to attempt to do: image the entire sky every 3 nights for 10 years, slowly collecting more light to detect ever fainter objects. Its estimated that it will detect 20 billion objects in the sky over those 10 years, and flag 10 million things that change in the sky after each 3 day pass. In 10 years of operations, it will collect around 60 petabytes of data. But today I want to chat about these first images released from just 7 days of observing (that give us a taste of what we can expect over the next 10 years), detecting 2000 asteroids in just that tiny patch of sky in a short space of time!
Rubin DP1 research paper - rtn-095.lsst.io
Rubin Skyviewer App - https://skyviewer.app/
Download the first images for yourself - rubinobservatory.org/gallery/collections/first-look-gallery
My previous video on Rubin - youtube.com/watch?v=X3N-DjVXh44
Rubin Comet Catchers project - zooniverse.org/projects/orionnau/rubin-comet-catchers
Galaxy Zoo project - zooniverse.org/projects/zookeeper/galaxy-zoo
00:00 Introduction
02:21 What makes the Rubin images different from previous surveys of the sky?
08:12 Why do the stars look weird? Rainbow spikes & red circles
13:48 Wow that’s a lot of asteroids
19:05 Bloopers
Video filmed on a Sony ⍺7 IV
Video edited by Martino Gasparrini: fiverr.com/mgs_editing
---
📚 My new book, "A Brief History of Black Holes", out NOW in hardback, paperback, e-book and audiobook (which I narrated myself!): lnk.to/DrBecky
---
👕 My new merch, including JWST designs, are available here (with worldwide shipping!): dr-becky.teemill.com
---
🎧 Royal Astronomical Society Podcast that I co-host: podfollow.com/supermassive
---
🔔 Don't forget to subscribe and click the little bell icon to be notified when I post a new video!
---
👩🏽💻 I'm Dr. Becky Smethurst, an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford (Christ Church). I love making videos about science with an unnatural level of enthusiasm. I like to focus on how we know things, not just what we know. And especially, the things we still don't know. If you've ever wondered about something in space and couldn't find an answer online - you can ask me! My day job is to do research into how supermassive black holes can affect the galaxies that they live in. In particular, I look at whether the energy output from the disk of material orbiting around a growing supermassive black hole can stop a galaxy from forming stars.
drbecky.uk.com
