Overview

• First images reveal detailed views of the Virgo galaxy cluster and the Trifid and Lagoon nebulas captured by its 3.2-gigapixel camera.
• In just ten hours of testing, the observatory identified 2,104 new asteroids, including seven near-Earth objects that pose no threat.
• Perched atop Cerro Pachón in Chile, the telescope’s camera will collect about 20 terabytes of data each night and amass roughly 500 petabytes over its ten-year operation.
• Starting later this year, the Legacy Survey of Space and Time will scan the southern sky every three to four nights to create a time-lapse map of cosmic evolution.
• Over its mission, the survey aims to catalogue around 20 billion galaxies and probe the nature of dark matter and dark energy.