When you finally get that shiny coating you wanted.... 🤩
Rubin Observatory's 8.4-meter mirror is officially, finally, a mirror! In a 4.5-hour process, the glass got its protected silver coating—and one step closer to being able to #CaptureTheCosmos
Stellar streams are the torn-apart remnants of small galaxies or star clusters around the Milky Way—they hold clues about its history, and the dark matter that surrounds it.
It was Colonel Mustard in the ballroom with the candlestick!
In our cosmic game of "Who Dunnit," the glittering tendrils of stars around the Milky Way known as stellar streams are the clues to figure out how dark matter behaves on sub-galactic scales.
That feeling when you check a huge item off your to-do list...
Giant digital camera: ✅
Construction of Rubin Observatory's car-sized camera is officially complete at SLAC National Accelerator Lab! We're one step closer to being ready to #CaptureTheCosmos🌌
To close out #WomensHERstoryMonth, we're celebrating our namesake, Dr. Vera C. Rubin ✨
Dr. Rubin was an accomplished American astronomer whose work provided convincing evidence for the existence of dark matter. Rubin Observatory was renamed in her honor in 2019.
Once online starting in 2025, Rubin Observatory will #CaptureTheCosmos night after night and produce a deluge of data that will help scientists understand more about about dark matter, among so many other fields of science! 🌌
The 62-ton piece of glass that will soon become Rubin Observatory's combined primary/tertiary mirror was unboxed at the summit this week and lifted onto its steel support cell! 🧵
A team from the @uarizona Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab made the trip to Chile to complete the lift using a custom-made vacuum lifter called a "spider" 🕷️
Next up: integrating the glass with the cell, and then moving it to the coating chamber to get its shiny silver coating!
And no, we didn't order the mirror in blue by mistake--that's a protective Opti-Coat layer that keeps the vacuum lifter from damaging the surface of the glass. It'll be removed before the mirror is coated!
It's not every day we get to throw a welcome home party 🎉
Last week marked a big construction achievement with the move of our 8.4-meter primary/tertiary mirror into the main observatory building! It'll now go through preparations to get its shiny silver coating ✨
Rubin Observatory seeks a talented adminstrative professional to support operations activities. As a Senior Executive Coordinator, this person will be an important part of making Rubin science a reality!