🇨🇱

With a resolution above 3.2 gigapixels, a nearly three-ton weight and the ambitious task of carrying out an unprecedented decade-long exploration, the largest digital camera ever built for optical astronomy is ready to be installed under the clear skies of northern Chile.

The pieces required to assemble the Vera C. Rubin Observatory – which includes a ground-based telescope and the camera – traveled in several vehicles to the summit of Cerro Pachón in the Coquimbo region, on the edge of the Atacama desert, some 565 kilometers north of Santiago.

According to its website, the Rubin Observatory is a complex, integrated system consisting of an eight-meter wide-field ground-based telescope, the camera, and an automated data processing system. It will generate approximately 20 terabytes of data per night and its ten-year exploration will produce a catalog database of 15 petabytes.