A New Era in Southern Sky Surveys

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The Vera C. Rubin Observatory located in Chile, is unique in terms of its mirror design, camera sensitivity, telescope speed and computing infrastructure.

It is set to revolutionise understanding of the universe with its 8.4-metre Simonyi telescope which will allow it to scan the entire southern sky about every three nights.

For this reason, the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) programme was launched. It is a survey project aiming to map the entire visible southern sky in detail over a ten-year period.

The LSST programme consists of several leading principal investigators including UKZN’s Professor Kavilan Moodley, the director of the HIRAX (Hydrogen Intensity and Real Time Analysis eXperiment) project. Moodley, one of 10 South African scientists and their teams, will have access to the LSST data, enabling groundbreaking research on topics ranging from the origins of the universe to galaxy evolution and the mechanisms behind stellar explosions.

June 2025 saw the observatory capture its first light images using its powerful LSST camera which is the largest digital camera ever built for astronomy. It weighs more than three tons and is equipped with a 3.2 gigapixel sensor array which will capture enormous images of the sky every 15 seconds, enabling researchers to construct the most detailed view of the cosmos to date.

The initial images, taken during the commissioning phase, demonstrate the observatory’s groundbreaking capabilities. The first light images were first seen internationally at events celebrated globally with two taking place in South Africa, one at the Wits Anglo American Digital Dome and the other at the South African Astronomical Observatory in Cape Town.

Moodley attended the event at the Wits Dome where he made a presentation titled: ‘South African Science with the Rubin Observatory’ during which he described the novel science that can be accomplished by combining Rubin-LSST data with data from the HIRAX telescope, a radio telescope being built in South Africa. The LSST programme represents a significant development in astronomy and by capturing a dynamic, multi-dimensional view of the universe, it promises not only to answer some of the deepest questions in physics and cosmology, but also to raise new ones.

•    The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is named after astronomer Dr Vera Rubin whose research focused on dark matter in our universe and the proof of its existence. Her convincing research in this area led to the building of the observatory which is funded by the US National Science Foundation and the US Department of Energy, Office of Science.

Words: Prashina Ramcharan

Photograph: Supplied