Space and Astronomy News for the 28th of June 2025

Vera C. Rubin Observatory delights the world with its "First Look"

Unless you've been hiding under a rock or down a burrow this week, you would have seen the magical "First Look" images released by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in recent days. 

We've been talking about this new observatory for a number of years now, and it's the result of decades of planning by astronomers. 

Images from the First Look

The first batch of images released this week were some of the most detailed, wide field views of the Universe ever produced. What's more, they were the results of a comparatively few hours of observation and while stunning, are only hints of what will be captured over the next decade.

The Virgo Cluster

A popular region of the sky for amateur astronomers, this is a collection of prominent galaxies many of which were discovered by early observers using some of the first telescopes. Some of the galaxies can be seen with your eyes even using binoculars and many more are visible in even small telescopes. It's over 53 million light years from Earth.

The Virgo Cluster is visible tonight in the northern part of the sky just after dark from most parts of Australia. 

The crosshairs mark the region of the sky containing The Virgo Cluster as seen from Sydney, on the 28th June 2025 at around 6.30pm local time

The "First Look" image of the same region contains some 10 million galaxies. 

A version of The Cosmic Treasure Chest image release by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory with labels indicating many main features. Click here for a larger version

What's staggering about this image is both the amount of sky it covers, and the details captured even during the Vera C. Rubin's initial observing run. If you have the computing resources, you can even download a 14 Gb full size image to explore the vast number of different galaxies it contains. No two of them appear the same either. The scale, type and age of each galaxy appears unique. Remarkable as this image is, it captured just 0.05% of the 20 billion galaxies the Rubin C. Observatory will photograph in the next few years.

Trifid and Lagoon

Another set of images released in The First Look is of part of the sky where the Trifid and Lagoon nebulae are located. There's a few different types of nebulae in the sky.  They're usually regions of interstellar gas some light years across where new stars are being formed. We see them as they are lit up either by reflecting the light from nearby stars or emitting their own after absorbing energy from them. Nebulae are favourites for visual observers where they appear as ghostly patches of "clouds" through a telescope eyepiece, as well as popular targets for astrophotographers.

The Trifid Nebula (M20) and Lagoon Nebula (M8) are located in the rich star fields embedded in the Milky Way and are visible tonight. 

Where to find the Trifid Nebula (M20) and Lagoon Nebula (M8) on the 28th of June 2025 from Sydney at around 10.00pm local time. 

(We'll be covering both in more detail in an upcoming BINTEL What's in the Sky Southern Hemisphere YouTube video.)

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory First Look release of this part of the Milky Way showed both of these nebulae embedded the in rich clouds of gas and stars.

This image is the result of just seven hours of imaging by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. Larger version here.  Full sized 24 Gb image here.

When zooming into the full sized image, some areas that seem to the gas clouds are actually made up of almost countless individual stars. Again, this expansive panorama is only scratching the surface of what we'll see down the track from this new telescope. 

Other highlights of the First Release

Another major part of the initial data was the discovery of 2104 new asteroids of various types including 7 near-Earth objects.

Check out this YouTube video to learn how new asteroids were discovered during the first imaging runs of the new telescope

About 20,000 new asteroids are found every year by observatories around the world. Asteroids are mainly found by comparing two different images of the same part of the sky. If a "star" moves from one image to the next, it's likely an object in the Solar System and astronomers can investigate further. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory discovered around 10% of this figure in just 1,185 frames from its camera. What's more, there are just under 4,000 objects detected of which around 1,800 were previously observed. This means that a quick peek at a part of the sky more than doubled the number of asteroids known to be visible at that time. 

The telescope has a unique sensitivity to help us detect fast moving bodies.  More than just cataloguing more objects of the same sort we already know of, there's a strong possibility it will find something unexpected and possibly even the long conjectured "Planet 9". The ongoing unveiling of unknown parts of the Solar System will help us understand its formation and history and possibly even help us spot threats to the Earth. 

Can I explore The Very C. Rubin Observatory data myself?

Yes! Simply head over to their SKYVIEWER Website that can be found here. They have tours and guides. More data will be added as the telescope completes further imaging sessions.

Gilmour Space Technologies aims for a launch this week

The first commercial orbital space launch from Australia, the delayed Gilmour Space Technologies Eris 1 mission, now has a possible launch date of No Earlier Than (NET) the July 2nd 2025, due to expected weather conditions.

You can stay up to date with the Eris 1 launch schedule from its Bowen, QLD facility, here.

Cheers,

Earl White

BINTEL

28th June 2025