Vera Rubin Observatory Explained {Rocket Monday}

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]Hello YouTube viewers, welcome to my channel Science to Technology. In today's show, Rocket Monday, we're going to talk about one Ruben Observatory. So, let's dive deep into it. So, basically why do we need this? Well, you have to understand that whenever you're talking about a country like uh USA and like you know large scientific field, you have way too many people involved into it.

[00:00:19]So, how the heck you invest collective money so it gets the most collective good done. So to handle that uh USA created a system known as decadal review meaning they're going to uh every 10 years they're going to have have a almost like a parliament kind of scenario where they're going to have uh selected people of each sector that is associated with that and they're going to contribute their thoughts and processes and it's like okay this is what we think the field should focus on.

[00:00:44]So every 10 years this is done. So in 2010 uh this uh survey was done and be mindful that this is a lot of money that they are talking about and lot of um what do you call bodies that are involved into this for example DOE NSF NASA JPL N O I A labs so there are so many uh players into it and again each of them are contributing some amount of money grand total the money is huge and once it's done right like let's just say they figured out what they have to focus on after that people will come up with the ideas. It's like how can we achieve the desired goal and then a project will be created. After the project has been created, international players can jump into it. For example, in this player uh ESA, ISA uh department of science and technology, India, uh Australia, Canada, Brazil, all of them chipped in and uh in 2010 the decision was we're going to again the name is very interesting new world, new horizon. So large optic survey telescope was the top priority as in like we need something like this. So why? Well, here's deal. Uh this is 2010.

[00:01:50]You have to understand that they have to work much further ahead. So even though JWST was not ready yet, but they were expecting it to be ready because again it was way too much delayed. But they have realized very early on that we have lot of telescope now lot of them. Few were under construction that were going to come online. But there was a fundamental flaw. We have really good equipments that can see very far, see very faint object, have very excellent resolution, but we have no idea how they uh you know fold into the whole uh what you call ecosystem as in we we have a telescope. We are paying attention to a grass blade. We are not looking the forest. So we needed something that can look at the forest. And that's why if you pay attention to the telescopes that are being released recently, all of them are survey telescope. This is because of this 10 uh 2010 discussion. It's like we need a better stitching. Basically, we need a panorama of the cosmic universe so we can study more things because we kind of good like we got stars, we got planets, we good, we're good with those things. But how does the large structure plays to it? We have no idea like we knew back then that there is something known as dark matter. Yeah, we still know that but we have no idea what the hell it is. Now we have to deal with dark energy. Again, these things these patterns reveal yourself in larger surveys. they do not reveal yourself if you're paying attention to it's like it's not going to do that like you have to have a wide tackle. It's almost like we got the sniper guy now we need a spotter guy. So that was the core intent in 200 it's like do not focus on uh next generation next 10 years do not focus on making things that are just okay more sniper like focus on more panorama more overall holistic system analysis.

[00:03:29]So $800 million again uh some from USA most from USA some from other uh industrial partners and other uh expertise and resources they were allocated and this was $800 million and uh the hardware was completed in 2025.

[00:03:44]Now to give you a context of that this is abomination. This puppy was built and completed in almost the right time and in almost the right schedule with the right amount of budget. How the heck that happened? How the a multi-billion dollar with multinational project can be have that it's like oh yeah you're supposed to be ready oh yeah sir we are ready what it's almost like did did is build this because they are the only one that has ever seen in a weapons project that there was under budget and uh you know before scheduled so did they worked on this so fundamentally this is a bonkers thing like again uh the original budget of James web space telescope was $500 million then it got extended to $1 billion then it consumed 10 billion dollar 800 million. So take it and go. And uh the whole point is um this is not a telescope. This is more of a panorama for cosmic universe.

[00:04:43]So what's the expectation? Well, they started big as in give me 10 square degree shots. That was the what you call benchmark they were targeting like the target point. And to give you a physical like basically how wide this we are talking about like X and Y coordinate.

[00:04:57]Yeah, moon is a very good easy understanding like if you look into Hubble Hubble is a very small spot in the moon like you look into the moon look into a small spot that's the Hubble James web telescope something similar while a James web telescope does have a brightness advantage because again it's what do you call the photon collection area is huge that's good part but the field of view basically where it's looking that's even smaller so it's not going to be like it's bright but field of view is not huge but again uh Roman telescope that is coming online soon that will have like huge that's why I said like the tech uh study focused on that only it's like scan everything so 50x larger than moon understand that like tweet tweet tweet tweet you you can fit 50 of these puppies it's like basically 1 2 3 4 sir I completed the sky this puppy should be able to complete sky in a two nights whole of southern sky with like a resolution that matters not just like you know okay technically you can do that with your Nikon cameras or Sony cameras But I'm talking like astronomical grade observatory of the whole night sky. This is like dying. They're expecting almost 700 snapshots uh per night and each uh they did not achieve the exact uh 10° they have achieved 9.6° uh again engineering balancing cost and all that.

[00:06:14]So 9.6° and that two nights is horrifyingly fast. Uh meaning if somebody copy pasted this again where it's like okay let's just make one more of this. They'll have whole sky coverage in one night. That is unimaginable from a humanity's point of view. Like and be mindful while we are saying this is not very high resolution. This is not very in-depth compared to telescopes that we had till 1990s. This would be like dude don't don't even try to open your mouth.

[00:06:41]While we can make better, we just cannot make something that can give this sort of oomph. It's fine tuned for that oomph. Like the surface like it's scanning the whole milky way. It's like bro, we got this.

[00:06:53]So uh 825 slices is expected in 10 years of the whole southern sky like snapshot one, snapshot two, snapshot three having 825 of astronomical grade satellite panoromas that shut up take money like that is lot more and be mindful that's the bare minimum for whole sky. They do expect that if something interesting start to happen like let's say they take a photo and computer detect flagged it like hey we detected supernova okay take another photo in next 5 minutes. Do not do the whole sky because again this will override it or something else can override it. For example, other telescope observes something interesting. It's like okay let's focus on that area. It will. So that's why technically it can do give or take 1200 slices of uh southern sky. It will not do that much because they know like they will have to go over some places every 10 minutes so to say. So any rapid event is happening they will like cut.

[00:07:45]So and what can we see? Well, there are certain things that this puppy will be like master at. Asteroids, anything that moves fast does require you panorama.

[00:07:53]And again, panorama also solves another issue of like low brightness. Uh you will see movement, you will see occlusion. Uh if you have multiple slices, it would be obvious AF. So that is there. Supernova, boom. Uh flaring stars, stars can sneeze a lot. And now we can see it because we can have long-term with high resolution slice data. It's not like okay, we took one photo, next photo is next year. It could have like literally gone through its old uh like period and we would have no idea. So this is solving that issue.

[00:08:26]Now how did we achieve this? Well uh we used donut optics meaning three mirror aigmism. Uh so why why do we have three folding rather than two normal foldings?

[00:08:36]Well this allows them the tube length to be smaller. Otherwise the cradle would be huge. It would be like Eiffel Tower trying to focus. Uh so they folded light three times. So light comes from the outside that we call uh M1 8.4 m. It goes into the outer ring not the whole disc. Let that be very clear not the whole disc. Whole disc is two mirrors not one. So the outer donut is the input area and that input area focuses on mirror number two. This is so from that mirror number two you go again on mirror number three which is inside the donut and that donut sends it into the optical camera.

[00:09:11]So this was designed in such a way that while the optical area could have been huge even with this mirror because this whole internal area isn't gone but they prioritize on making it short and nimble and this is the whole intent behind it.

[00:09:22]Other telescopes they are very methodic because again it's a sniper like if you have heard of this that sniper have to control their breathing. It's true because if you even if you have a uh what do you call DSLR or mirrorless camera that has like a good telephoto lens disable image stabilization you'll find like your breathing and your heart rate is shaking it. So to make sure this sort of system is um can handle this. The wide field helps it. Second they designed the whole hardware to handle it. Meaning it's very nimble. That's why they folded light so much more. They could have done it but that's like no we need wham wam bam wham b wham. So, it is fast, but it can also stop very fast. Making a massive thing move fast, that's not that difficult. Stopping it without vibration or oscillation. That's black magic.

[00:10:08]Like, can we move this puppy? No, we have hydraulics. It's like it's a wetness day for us. That's don't even worry about it. We have oil bearings.

[00:10:15]Don't worry about it. Now, can we stop it without a destroying it? And uh after without destroying it, no vibration and oscillation. Meaning it could go from lock one to lock two and it could has to do rapidly otherwise oh yeah we took a photo now we are waiting even the optics can do it cameras can do it digital back uh back hall can do it it's just the hardware is still you know waiting for settling down so that's the key uh that not only all lubrication itself is not enough for that. So they have dampening via hydraulics and they have electromagnetically controlled feedback loop. It's very uh what do you call all telescopes have that but they they are working on a different time frame. It's like take your sweet time. This is like bam bam do this completely different and uh the glass elements that they are making is made from ultra low expansion glass. Now again they did not specify or I could not find which uh compound they have used. Most likely it's Zurodar. Now Zurar is ultra low expansion glass. It's a normal thing. Has been used for telescopes. But be very mindful that's a trademark name. So you can't use it. So most likely and patent has expired. Most likely has expired. So I'm pretty sure anybody Tom Dick and Harry can make it.

[00:11:27]They just can't call it that. And mirror I thought it would be aluminum but for some reason is silver and uh it's a magnetron sputtering gave that. And apparently it also has a protective coating which is new to me that generally this was like first contact surface that you don't supposed to have anything uh before the photon but apparently they have some amount of dialectric layer that is very thin like one or two atoms thin but it is helping the silver layer to handle outside air for longer. Again that is new to me untested to me. I have not seen that ever done. So that's the optics part of it. TW three-fold.

[00:12:05]So what about the camera now? Camera as of now when I'm talking and most likely for a few years to come uh in 2026 is the world's largest digital camera. Like it's it's bonkersly huge. It's so huge that again nobody could manufacture one.

[00:12:20]We don't even have wafers that are that size. Uh so the only way to do that is having smaller wafers uh as in units. So they bought each unit uh multiple unit of that. Each unit is 4K CCD sensor. Now like okay why CCD not CMOS. CMOS is a very low cost uh tool that's why your mobile phone has that but CCD if you have money is no object for you then you will always use CCD always look into the all replacement telescopes all of them have CCD short uptake money CCD uh and again it also has glover and it because it has a very what you call analogesque uh what you call data pipeline it's far more what you call uh if you know what you're doing CCD will give you a image that is like do don't even like don't even compare like you can calculation on analog domain like it's like it's if you know what you're doing CCD is the guy so they took CCD each CCD is 4K and each CCD is 42 mm square it's huge surface area wise each each is this like this big and they have five filter cer now again sensor like this they do not have a bare filter so the color they won't get color photo output of it so how do you get the the filtering now they have five filters do not ask me which filter they have removed or added extra But uh they have 500 u g r i z y. Yeah, that's why I said there is one extra. So uh four of them are there in the carousel at any time and one is always in front of camera.

[00:13:43]The carousel can only handle four. It cannot hold handle five in the carousel.

[00:13:47]So one has to be in front of the system and uh this is what we classify as multisspectral camera as in the black and white sensor is there. All camera sensor is black and white. It's just does not have the color filter on top of it. So for example for their um uh ultravioletish slice they will take the U slide the U filter will be used for reddish slice G would be used R would be used and they will keep slicing all of this all of these slide combined then it'll give you hyperspectral system now computer compared to your normal camera it only has three slice RGB here you have five slices uh so it's much much deeper also like and again for scientifically you do want this like um astrophotography they always generally do this whereas like have a cooled black and sensor and then uh rotate a filter around it. That gives you much better resolution like scientific resolution.

[00:14:34]The only alternative would be having an optical path where you can have like four or five sensor but at this size that's not viable and they are cryogenically cooling it also to minus 100°. Now they do not need to go absolute zero like Hubble because again Hubble is focusing on infrared.

[00:14:51]This puppy does not. So it's like we good, we good. minus 100 is like be good or be mindful it's surrounded by atmosphere. So if they made it like you know minus to almost zero Kelvin it would be hell of a hassle to uh maintain it as in like condensation wise. Heck you might even have nitrogen condensation. So each uh pixel as in like resolution wise 3.2 gapixel not mega giga. So this is on a whole different level and on a boring night they're supposed to make 10 terabytes of data and good night they should be making 20 terabytes of data. Meaning this puppy is going to go toe-to-toe with uh Netflix and uh basically YouTube and all that like this is bonkers amount of data every night. The only difference is it's not 24 into 7 only night. So that is and be mindful data was so thick they had to have under C fiber cable 100 Gbps laid down just for this and they have physical rolling shutter which is weird to me I have no idea why they are not doing electronic shutter but best explanation I've gotten is that every uh filter requires a little bit of adjustment to the field curvature that means it's better to do that in dark mode so they have a rolling shutter I have no idea why but again it is there that's physically there you can see it, you can hear it. Uh but like I have no idea why. Like this hardware does not need it. Fundamentally it does not need it because again CCD is global shutter by design. So if you know the reason do explain to me like but I did not got satisfactory answer so to say.

[00:16:24]So what's the result of this puppy?

[00:16:26]Well, it has already discovered 11,000 asteroid and that's what I said like and be mindful there is a very good chance all the data that they are going to capture is like oh this was this asteroid in the first slide because again you have to have built a temporary some things that are very obvious are obvious but things that are not obvious becomes obvious once you have multiple slices so it's a great start now be mindful as of now 2026 uh April uh 24 it's still in science operation uh warm-up phase as in like the hardware is ready They're fixing up the backlog basically automations are the programming because again this will generate auto alert uh all of those programming who is getting because again nowadays astron astrologologist sorry uh basically astronomers do not travel to the telescope they do remote in so and again how do you distribute the data how do you calibrate the sensor all of that thing has to happen and that's what's going on right now the hardware is built first light has been done this is what is going on it should take one year and uh to give you a uh proper digestion of like how much data we are talking about. This puppy even if let's just say they only run it for 10 years and after that dismantle it or shut it down because it's too expensive to run. Yeah. Uh it will keep generations of astronomer busy. I mean like this puppy makes so much data it can keep AI busy like you have to understand that like taking this whole slice and I'm just waiting somebody figuring out like hey let's just build one more like it would be shocking or two three more so we can do whole celestial sphere in this sort of resolution every night like we will finally see dark matter move we'll see dark energy react like those things will become ah that's why it wasn't working like that we are not there yet but we should be there hopefully knock on wood So and if any other telescope sees something cool this is like I got you like it's directly going to suit or what if it's not there it's like okay look into my archive it's a security camera so results have been very promising and again I was shocked of a project of this scale and magnitude to be done reasonable amount of time and reasonable amount of cost overrun wise I'm like how the heck that happened like and who the hell was doing James web space telescope so this was my presentation on van ruben telescope So hopefully you have liked it, learned from it. In that case, please click the like button, share it amongst your friend. That will help me a lot. If you didn't like it, didn't enjoy it, urge you to press dislike, press it twice to show my disappointment. Please leave a comment because I do try to reply to all of them. Subscribe. Press the bell icon if you're free.