2025-06-26
39 分钟A few months ago in April, at 8pm in the evening,
a group of around 20 scientists and engineers were crammed into a small control room high in the foothills of the Andes in Chile.
Their eyes were fixed on a large computer display.
They'd been waiting a decade for this moment.
In fact, exactly ten years earlier,
builders had broken ground on the mountain they were standing on to build the rooms they were now in and to install the machines they were now working with.
After all the settings had been checked and double-checked, an image appeared on the screen.
It was the very first picture taken with the world's most powerful digital camera.
nestled in the heart of the brand new telescope sitting five stories above them,
the Vera Rubin Observatory.
There was a problem with that first image, though.
When the scientists zoomed in, instead of crisp images of stars in the night sky,
all they saw were thousands of rings or doughnuts.
To the average person, it would look like, I don't know, Cheerios.
An image of Cheerios in a bowl, right?
Lots of donuts.
Victor Krabendam is the Rubin Observatory's project manager.
He's responsible for the people, the building, and the testing of the instruments.
Most people would say, what do you mean donuts?
What are you talking about?