NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — A giant new telescope in Chile has opened its eyes for the first time — and while the view may not be impressive to some, its scientist parents are thrilled.
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, an 8.4-meter telescope built by the National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science, successfully passed a series of critical systems tests and even snapped early images of the sky with an engineering camera. The result? A clean bill of health and an early set of images that will only get better once the observatory gets its final, much more powerful camera later this year.
