Project News

The LSST Project Office welcomes you to our fourth year of quarterly E-News production. This issue follows the team from Washington, DC, to Chile, as we move toward the realization of the LSST. For highlights from our most recent quarterly report, Read more…

Kaboom! Life’s a Blast on Cerro Pachón

Site leveling activities have begun on the El Peñón summit of Cerro Pachón in preparation for the LSST. “First Blast”, detonated on El Peñón on the morning of March 8th, broke up ~320 cubic meters of material; 13,000 cubic meters must ultimately be removed to provide the platform for LSST at the summit and another 6,000 cubic meters for calibration hill and road work. Approximately 55 blasts of similar size are necessary to remove all the remaining material. Read more…

Loose Abrasive Grinding of the M1/M3

The LSST M1/M3 optic is now in the final phase of loose abrasive grinding as optical processing continues at the Steward Observatory Mirror Laboratory (SOML). Damage to the mirror sustained during the fixed abrasive grinding has been repaired, completely restoring the optical and mechanical properties of the mirror. Read more…

LSST/ICRAR agreement to tackle data deluge

LSST and the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) have signed an agreement to work together on designing common database systems for optical and radio astronomy and research tools that will enable direct comparisons of objects they observe. The agreement funds a post-doctoral appointment to facilitate multi-wavelength astronomical research with very large data collections from LSST and the radio survey telescopes such as the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), and Murchison Widefield Array (MWA). Read more…

Supernovae: Seeding the Elements and Measuring the Universe

Supernovae are some of the most spectacular events we can observe in the Universe. These stunning stellar endings seed the cosmos with elements that give rise to stars, solar systems, and even life, while providing one of the best ways to measure distances in the Universe. They serve as standard candles at large distances revealing evidence for the accelerated expansion of the Universe. Observers have recorded about 1,000 supernovae with descriptions of these events found recorded in texts of many civilizations stretching back 1,000 years. Today astronomers study supernova explosions in distant galaxies and remnants in our own and nearby galaxies with sensitive telescopes. LSST’s data will dwarf the observations to date as it discovers over 10 million supernovae during its ten-year survey. And “LSST will find ten of each type of rare, once-in-a-million supernova,” according to Michael Wood-Vasey. Using this unprecedented compendium of stellar death throes, scientists will expand our understanding of stellar evolution, the large-scale structure of the Universe, and dark energy using observations of these cataclysmic events. Read more…

Scientist, Educator and Entrepreneur – Eric Hilton

Eric Hilton is poised to complete his graduate studies at the University of Washington in 2011, but he’s already launched other aspects of a multifaceted career. While enthralled with his science, as co-founder of Technically Learning, an educational non-profit started with several friends, he takes rigorous, research-based science lessons to teachers and teens. His love of science and dedication to research find expression in getting the coolest activities developed by working scientists and engineers to inner city, low-income teachers and kids. Read more…