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If there were any doubts about the massive impact that the Vera C. Rubin Observatory will have on the field of astronomy, those doubts have been quickly put to rest.

After achieving first light—the moment a telescope gathers data for the first time—the observatory that were created by the groundbreaking 8.4-meter telescope on June 23. Paired with the world’s largest digital camera at 3.2 gigapixels, the Rubin Observatory has begun its mission of capturing the entire night sky every three nights.

Already, the Rubin Observatory has discovered 2,104 new asteroids (including seven near-Earth objects), created a 5-gigapixel image with , and showcased dozens of variable stars.

“It’s showing that the telescope is performing at the level that it was designed,” says Illinois Tech Assistant Professor of Physics Emily Leiner, whose research investigates stellar evolution. “It’s finding the things we expected to find.”

Leiner and a team of three Illinois Tech undergraduate students will be among the first researchers to analyze data from the Rubin Observatory as part of the after the first official data drop scheduled for the first week of July.

Above all, Leiner was awe-struck in reaction to the stunning photos released by the Rubin Observatory, which operates in Chile’s Atacama Desert.

She also pointed to the enormous sample sizes that the Rubin Observatory has already produced, which will help the field of astronomy confront many mysteries that are still unsolved. For example, it is predicted to detect between 3–4 million supernovae over its 10-year mission—more than 10 times the previous detection rate of previous surveys.

“It’s really the first-of-its-kind of mission to be imaging the night sky to this depth over and over again,” says Leiner. “They’ve already found all of this cool new stuff, and there’s much more to come.”