Kevin is Director of the University of Hull’s Centre of Excellence for Data Science, AI and Modelling (DAIM) and an observational astronomer and applied data scientist. He confesses to having been “blown away” when the first photographs from the Chilean mountain-top observatory landed.
“I was excited before the first images were shared last week, but nothing prepared me for the astonishing detail of deep space they revealed.”
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is a monumental international collaboration and the first of its kind. Over the course of a decade, the observatory will create an ultra-wide, ultra-high-definition time-lapse record of our Universe that has never been achieved before.
36 UK institutions are involved in the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) including the University of Hull. Professor Pimbblet has been on the UK:LSST Board since his arrival in the UK.
“When I joined Hull from Australia in 2014, I immediately got involved as there was a clear need to set up a UK-wide network.
“Projects like this represent not just years in the making, but decades of planning, agreements, international scientific consensus on the best approaches, as well as a lot of behind-the-scenes endeavours.
“The observatory uses the largest digital camera ever built. The telescope’s mirror design, camera sensitivity, telescope speed, and computing infrastructure are each in a class of their own.
“For the University, involvement in this project will allow scientists at the Milne Centre for Astrophysics to use some of the deepest ever images of the sky to help probe how galaxies evolve and will bring in expertise from DAIM to create automated algorithms to help us read these vastly detailed images.
“The observatory will help create a map of the Milky Way that is 1,000 times larger than any previous survey. It promises to unveil our own Galaxy in unprecedented depth. We will similarly map our solar system, identifying four times more objects than we currently know about. Rubin will be at the front line of planetary defence as we locate millions of new asteroids and other objects, some in near earth orbits.
“In the coming months and years the Rubin Observatory will delve into the mysteries of dark energy and dark matter, and reveal answers to questions we have yet to imagine. I can’t think of a more exciting time to be involved in astronomy and data science as we begin to unravel those mysteries.”