For more information: 2024-2025 Discovery Series Collection | Eventbrite

CoMotion HQ: Condon Hall on the 7th floor, The Eventarium (map)

1100 Northeast Campus Parkway

Seattle, WA, 98105

United States

Prof. James Davenport, Associate Director, DIRAC Institute, University of Washington 

Big Data in the Sky: How the Rubin Observatory will Change Astronomy

Located in northern Chile, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory will be the most ambitious survey telescope ever constructed, and is slated to begin operations in mid 2025. Over its 10 year Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) program, Rubin will map the entire visible sky, cataloging over 40 billion stars and galaxies. In the first months of operation, Rubin will double the number of asteroids and “minor bodies” tracked in our own Solar System. The University of Washington has been a founding partner of the Rubin Observatory project for nearly 20 years, and its DIRAC Institute hosts experts in both science and software development. This talk will cover the wide range of astrophysics we expect the Rubin/LSST to advance, and the prospect of revealing exciting but unknown mysteries that will drive the next decade of discovery.