Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda Leanne Guy: A New Eye on Space
Sep 16, 2025
Leanne Guy, a Data Management System Science Team Lead at the Rubin Observatory with a PhD in experimental particle physics, discusses the groundbreaking capabilities of the Vera Rubin Observatory. She highlights how this innovative telescope will revolutionize our understanding of dark energy, dark matter, and help identify potentially hazardous asteroids. The discussion also honors the legacy of Vera Rubin, inspiring future generations in science, and touches on the importance of dialogue and combating misinformation in the scientific community.
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A Movie Of The Night Sky
- Rubin Observatory combines large mirror area, huge camera field, and fast movement to image the whole visible sky every three nights.
- This produces repeated imaging (~800 visits) creating a decade-long movie of the sky for time-domain science.
Early Asteroid Finds
- In its first images Rubin found ~2,000 asteroids and none were hazardous to Earth.
- Leanne emphasized Rubin's role as an early warning system for potentially dangerous asteroids.
Bring Analysis To The Data
- Don't download petabytes; use the Rubin Science Platform which brings analysis to the data in the cloud.
- Log into the web tools running in Google Cloud and execute analyses there instead of local downloads.
