Southampton astronomers be part of universe survey

Published:


2026-07-03 09:00:00

The most detailed survey of the universe ever undertaken has begun – with consultants from the University of Southampton serving to to steer the worldwide effort.

The Vera C Rubin Observatory in Chile has launched its Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) utilizing the biggest digital camera ever constructed to map the cosmos.

After a yr of testing, it’s now capturing ultrahigh-definition photographs to create a time-lapse of the universe.

Experts behind the survey, that includes Southampton astronomers, consider it may assist remedy a few of house’s largest mysteries – together with the character of darkish power and evolution of galaxies

Professor of Astrophysics Manda Banerji

from the University mentioned the launch of the survey is a milestone that UK scientists have spent greater than a decade making ready for.

She and fellow Southampton educational

Dr Elham Saremi

developed image-processing software program used to uncover new populations of stars, galaxies and black holes which can have been missed utilizing Rubin Observatory knowledge alone.

Prof Banerji mentioned: “Distant and funky objects slip out of the seen spectrum into the infrared, which suggests numerous thrilling astronomical phenomena aren’t picked up in optical surveys resembling LSST.

“Our software combines optical survey data with infrared data, opening up the door to new discoveries by both scientists and the public.”

During its 10-year survey, Rubin will catalogue an estimated 17 billion stars, 20 billion galaxies and thousands and thousands of occasions that change within the sky.

The software program being developed by the Southampton workforce will fuse collectively Rubin’s findings with infrared knowledge from the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) to seek out distant galaxies and black holes.

It will probably be accessible to the general public in order that astronomers – skilled or newbie – can course of knowledge from their telescope or digital camera.

Researchers at Southampton additionally delving into the survey knowledge to seek out far-off astrophysical occasions found by the telescope – resembling the sunshine given off by exploding stars, or supernovae.

Professor Mark Sullivan

mentioned: “By studying the chemistry and origins of these exploding stars we will be able to improve the way that we use them to investigate the nature of dark energy, the mysterious force driving the universe’s accelerating expansion.”

The UK is a serious worldwide associate of the US-led Rubin Observatory and is taking part in a big position within the administration and processing of the unprecedented dataset.

Its involvement is made up of 36 associate establishments, referred to as the LSST:UK Consortium, representing all main UK astronomy analysis teams.

Read extra at

lsst.ac.uk

or go to

rubinobservatory.org

.