Free Astronomy Magazine November-December 2023

19 NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2023 ASTRO PUBLISHING T his image captures not only Vera C. Rubin Observatory, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab, but one of the celestial specimens Rubin Observatory will observe when it comes online: the Milky Way. Rubin is being built to conduct the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). This survey will observe the entire visible southern sky every few nights over the course of a decade, capturing about 1,000 images of the sky every night and giving us a new view of our evolving Universe. The LSST is set to probe four areas of science, one of which is mapping the Milky Way to answer questions about its structure and formation. Once Rubin Observatory comes online, scientists will be able to access the data taken every night of operation. [RubinObs/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/B. Quint]