Welcome to Rubin's cosmic treasure chest! Introducing the first riches from NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s cosmic treasure chest, a wealth of data that will help scientists make countless new discoveries about our Universe. This image, one of the first released by Rubin Observatory, exposes a Universe teeming with stars and galaxies — transforming seemingly empty, inky-black pockets of space into glittering tapestries for the first time. Only Rubin can quickly produce such large images with this much color and richness. Here, Rubin’s view is focused on the southern region of the Virgo Cluster, about 55 million light-years away from Earth and the nearest large collection of galaxies to our own Milky Way. The image offers a stunning variety of objects — from bright stars ranging from blue to red in color, to nearby blue spiral galaxies, to distant red galaxy groups — demonstrating the broad range of science made possible by Rubin data. During the 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time, scientists around the world will access Rubin’s treasure trove of data to address questions like: How did the Milky Way form? What makes up the 95% of the Universe we can’t see? What will a detailed inventory of Solar System objects reveal? What will we learn from watching hundreds of millions of changes in the night sky over 10 years?
First seen: 2025-06-23 20:09
Last seen: 2025-06-24 09:11