Vera C. Rubin Observatory

New Capabilities

Transitioning from construction to operations

On June 23, 2025, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory released its first images. A 3.2-gigapixel camera, the largest ever built for astronomy, captured 10 million galaxies in a single frame. In just 10 hours of test observations, it found 2,104 asteroids nobody knew existed, including seven near-Earth objects; for the next decade, it will photograph the entire Southern Hemisphere sky every three nights.

Updated May 19