Stanford scientists work to create a high-definition movie of the cosmos

MENLO PARK, Calif. - It will be what is called "the greatest movie of the universe ever made."  

It is an ambitious project involving scientists at Stanford University which will map our changing cosmos every night for an entire decade.

High in the mountains of Chile, what is known as the Vera C. Rubin observatory is currently under construction at an elevation of nearly 9,000 feet. 

Inside the observatory is a camera built at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and shipped to the mountaintop from California.  

"It is the world’s largest digital camera. We are actually in the Guinness Book of World Records," said Dr. Aaron Roodman, a professor of particle and astrophysics at SLAC and deputy director of the observatory, which is jointly run with the National Science Foundation. 

"People are going to use the images to study dark energy, dark matter, the expansion of the universe, how galaxies form, how the solar system formed," Dr. Roodman said. 

According to SLAC, each single image will be able to capture a slice of the sky about 45 times the size of the full moon.  

By scanning the sky every night for over a decade, the camera will be able to capture faint objects and objects that change in position or brightness.  

"Over 10 years, we expect to see every part of the Southern Hemisphere sky almost a thousand times," Dr. Roodman said. 

In the end, scientists hope to create an ultra-wide, ultra-high-definition time-lapse record of the changing cosmos. 

SLAC said in a news release that this is the "most comprehensive data-gathering mission in the history of astrophysics."  The Rubin Observatory is expected to come online later in 2025.