In 1990 the Hubble Space Telescope was launched into space. It had fullfilled a dream of having a telescope in space for the first time. There were problems that had to be repaired but that was eventually done and the world got more interested in astronomy a bit because they could see better pictures than ever before. So that was about 35 years ago now. Much has been done in astronomy since then, with many other telescopes and astronomical instruments of various sorts placed into space. But Hubble Space Telescope pictures have become very familiar to people. In June of 2025 a new telescope, the Vera Rubin Observatory, was put into operation in mountains of Chile. It is still not fully deployed but the world has been able to see a sample of what it can do. It will be a truly eye-opening tool that people will talk about for a long time. What will astronomers and other scientists learn from it in the next 35 years?

The Bible occasionally refers to the stars. The stars can make us look at something beyond our little lives and consider God’s greatness. Because God created it for us to see and appreciate, it should be a kind of encouragement to us. If there is no God, then the universe becomes a kind of empty harsh place. Isaiah 40:26 says the following:

“Lift your eyes and look to the heavens:
Who created all these?
He who brings out the starry host one by one,
and calls them each by name. . . .”

This verse in Isaiah is not there to frighten us with God’s power. It goes on (verses 26-29) to say “Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, ‘My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God? . . . The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.’” God is still there for us if we seek Him. But you have to come to God his way, with humility and with faith in Christ.

So much has been observed, measured, and discovered in space over the years. But the Bible says God is in control of objects in space. Psalm 147:4 says “He determines the number of the stars. . . .“ Also, he names them all. Human beings have never named nearly all. Even today we can’t see them all. So God is always ahead of astronomers. He knows what’s out there better than we do. All our best efforts just discover part of it.

The Vera Rubin Telescope (or LSST) is unprecedented in what it does. It has the combination of a wide angle field of view, and very very high resolution. It is the largest digital camera ever made (with 3.2 Gigapixel resolution). The camera in the Vera Rubin Telescope has another name, the LSSTcam. The “LSST” acronym stands for Legacy Survey of Space and Time. It has six photographic filters so it can photograph from infrared through visible light, and on to ultraviolet. This makes the photos at the different wavelengths of light very useful for comparing to other telescopes. The color photos released are processed by combining the signal from the multiple filters to get a visible light image. The telescope has a very sophisticated low friction mechanism for moving the camera mount. The Primary mirror is 8.4 meters in diameter and the camera weighs more than three tons. It has to take an image, then move and completely stop all vibrations within 5 seconds so it can take the next image. It takes an image with one filter, then swaps filters quickly and takes another with the next filter, and so on. Rather than being pointed to something requested by the researcher, it systematically moves through the Southern sky photographing everything it can see. It does differencing between the images so it can easily detect small faint changes from one picture to the next or one night to the next. In about 10 hours it detected over 2100 asteroids that had never been seen before. Because of its systematic processing of photographing the Southern sky, it will be collecting 20 Terabytes of data per night. After two years, the data will be made available to anyone. So, searching the digital photos will be something many people will likely help doing.

Below are some links to see some of the images and go to the official website of the observatory. I’d recommend taking a look at the official site and watch some of the videos in the Gallery. The striking thing to me in seeing the images is that there is so much more there than was ever seen before! One person described it as like taking a time-lapse record of the universe. But it cannot see the whole sky because it is in the Southern hemisphere.

Astronomy magazine article with a selection of pictures (these are small samples):
https://www.astronomy.com/science/first-ever-images-released-by-the-vera-c-rubin-observatory

The Rubin Observatory Official website:
https://rubinobservatory.org/

Video on the incredible engineering of the Vera Rubin Telescope
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_mSAqw_DBY