US EditionGetting Closer to the Stars: Fink, a French Tool for Tracking Transient Phenomena Across the Observable Universe
The Rubin Observatory's alert system issued 800,000 notifications for transient celestial events in one night, with alerts expected to reach 7 million nightly by year-end.
- On February 24, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory sent 800,000 alerts for celestial events during its first night of public access.
- Rubin began operations last year and its Simonyi Survey Telescope will scan the Southern Hemisphere, generating up to 20 terabytes nightly.
- Automated software compares new images to template images, subtracts them to reveal changes, and algorithms flag and classify differences, packaging alerts rapidly for machine-learning brokers and software agents.
- Other telescopes and researchers can access alerts via public brokers like ANTARES, enabling rapid follow-up and asteroid tracking with citizen-science initiatives such as Zooniverse also participating.
- Scientists expect the nightly stream to scale to seven million alerts, feeding the Legacy Survey of Space and Time and advancing dark matter and dark energy studies.
14 Articles
14 Articles
Getting closer to the stars: Fink, a French tool for tracking transient phenomena across the observable universe
Thanks to Fink, a software package created by two CNRS engineers, it is now possible to track millions of transient celestial phenomena observed in the sky by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, in real time and with unprecedented precision. Minutes after each image is taken, Fink receives, processes, enriches, and cross-references the data with existing datasets. This allows even the faintest variations in detected light to be characterized…
Real-Time Night-Sky Surveillance: Millions of Nightly Signals from Space Expected as Rubin Observatory Comes Online
The Vera Rubin Observatory (Credit: Rubin Observatory/NSF/AURA/B. Quint). Welcome to this edition of The Intelligence Brief… This week, the NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory has issued its first real-time sky alerts, inaugurating a powerful monitoring system that astronomers say could transform how humanity studies a dynamic universe. In our analysis, we’ll be looking at 1) how the observatory’s automated pipeline may generate up to seven millio…
Rubin Observatory alerts scientists to 800,000 new asteroids, exploding stars and other cosmic phenomena in just one night
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory sent scientists nearly 1 million astronomy alerts in one night, showing off changes in the sky. Eventually, the telescope is expected to reach 7 million alerts per night.
Coverage Details
Bias Distribution
- 57% of the sources are Center
Factuality
To view factuality data please Upgrade to Premium
