Vera Rubin

New Capabilities

Observatory namesake, pioneering dark matter researcher

On June 23, 2025, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory released its first images. A 3.2-gigapixel camera, the largest ever built for astronomy, captured 10 million galaxies in a single frame. In just 10 hours of test observations, it found 2,104 asteroids nobody knew existed, including seven near-Earth objects; for the next decade, it will photograph the entire Southern Hemisphere sky every three nights.

Updated 3 days ago

New Capabilities

As of May 2026: Provided observational evidence for dark matter in galaxies

Fusion reactors might crack open the dark matter mystery without trying. University of Cincinnati physicist Jure Zupan and colleagues at Fermilab, MIT, and Technion just published a breakthrough. The study shows how neutrons slamming into reactor walls could spawn axions—hypothetical particles that may explain the 27% of the universe we can't see, and we're already building these reactors for clean energy.

Updated May 16