An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics
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A new kind of optical telescope with a 8.4-m diameter → primary mirror currently under construction in Chile and scheduled to begin operations in October 2023. Initially named Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), it will use a 3200 megapixel camera and an automated data processing system. It will have a large → field of view almost 10 square degrees of sky, or 40 times the size of the full moon. The LSST will move quickly between images to rapidly → survey the sky. From its mountain top site in the Andes (Cerro Pachon, a 2,682-m high mountain in Coquimbo Region), the LSST will take more than 800 panoramic images each night with its 3.2 billion-pixel camera, recording the entire visible sky twice each week. Each patch of sky it images will be visited 1000 times during the survey, each of its 30-second observations will be able to detect objects 10 million times fainter than visible with the human eye. The LSST's combination of telescope, mirror, camera, → data processing, and survey will capture changes in billions of faint objects. Hence, the data it provides will be used to create an animated, three-dimensional cosmic map with unprecedented depth and detail. This map will serve many purposes, from locating the → dark matter and characterizing the properties of the → dark energy, to tracking transient objects, to studying our own Milky Way Galaxy in depth. It will even be used to detect and track → potentially hazardous asteroids that might impact the Earth.

Named after Vera C. Rubin (1928-2016) whose work on galaxy rotation rates supported the existence of dark matter in galactic halos.