Upcoming Telescope Predicted to Discover Millions of Hidden Solar System Objects

A new observatory perched high in the Chilean Andes is about to blow the lid off our solar system—and scientists say it’s going to be like switching from a black-and-white TV to 4K color. The National Science Foundation and Department of Energy project, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, is slated to begin operations later this year. Armed with the largest digital camera ever built for astronomy and a sweeping, ultra-sensitive telescope, the observatory is expected to discover millions of previously unknown asteroids, comets, and other planetary leftovers—some of which venture uncomfortably close to our own planet. Now, researchers led by Meg Schwamb at Queen’s University Belfast have developed an open-source software program, Sorcha, that predicts the discoveries that Rubin may make. The papers describing the software and the associated predictions are available on the preprint server arXiv. The team estimates that Rubin will triple the number of known near-Earth objects (NEOs) from a ... Read full article.