What began as just another astronomical mission has made space science history. In just a few days of initial operation, the US-funded Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile has already accomplished what would have taken decades: capturing more than 2,000 new objects, including several passing near Earth. All this while the public’s eyes were focused on majestic images of galaxies and nebulae, and the true impact of Rubin’s debut lies in what we can barely see: tiny moving dots that could change the future of our civilization.
The U.S. bets big on a cosmic time machine with eyes on the entire sky
It’s worth noting here that the Vera C. Rubin Observatory is not just another astronomical telescope; in fact, it represents a new era of observation of the universe, in addition to bearing the hallmarks of a strategic American investment: the project is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of Energy. Its main mission is the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), a kind of “time-lapse of the cosmos” that will capture complete images of the southern hemisphere sky every three nights for the next 10 years.
Imagine this: every three days, the entire visible sky will be photographed in ultra-high resolution. The result is an unprecedented astronomical database, ready to reveal everything that moves or changes in brightness in space. And this is only possible because Rubin combines one of the largest ground-based telescopes in the world with the largest digital camera ever built. This allows for the observation, with great clarity, of objects that would normally escape detection: such as small, faint, and fast-moving asteroids.
How Rubin found 2,100 asteroids in a few nights — and why it changes everything
Now, let’s talk about the more than 2,100 bodies that are asteroids, found in just a few nights of testing. This includes seven near-Earth objects (NEOs), none of which, fortunately, pose any risk of impact. To put this in perspective, in over 200 years of research, astronomers around the world have cataloged about 1 million asteroids. With Rubin, that number could reach 5 million in a few years.
This was only possible thanks to Rubin’s ability to capture multiple images of the same area of the sky in a short period. The asteroids appear as colored streaks in the images (unlike asteroid YR4 seen in 2024), each color representing a different exposure. From this material, scientists can assemble a movie of the movement of these objects relative to the fixed background of stars, which greatly facilitates their identification and tracking. And best of all, they can do this before the asteroid “disappears” from view, as often happens with less powerful telescopes.
The Rubin Observatory might just save us
If you’re wondering what this changes in practice, the answer is simple: everything. Especially about our planetary defense. This is because asteroids are, for the most part, harmless. But it only takes one in the wrong orbit for a tragedy to occur. Consider the famous Tunguska event of 1908, which devastated an entire area of Siberia. If something similar were to occur in a populous city today, the damage would be catastrophic.
In other words, Rubin offers, for the first time, the real chance of having an early warning system for dangerous objects. According to LSSTscientists, Rubin should identify 90% of hazardous asteroids larger than 140 meters in diameter. This covers most objects capable of causing regional destruction. Not only that, but the project may also reveal new clues about the origin of the Milky Way, the behavior of dark matter, and the formation of the universe. In short, we can truly say that the Rubin Observatory is already rewriting cosmic surveillance.
