I'm Alan Alder, and this is clear and vivid conversations about connecting and communicating.

So there's all the questions that drove Rubin Observatory in the first place.

What is the nature of dark energy? What is the nature of dark matter?

Taking a census of our solar system, cataloging all of the asteroids, understanding the history and evolution of our home galaxy, the Milky Way.

There are so many questions that drove the design of Ruben. And I'd love to see all of those answered. But apart from that, I think that the real exciting thing for me,

and I think a lot of people who work on Ruben Observatory,

is the potential for Rubin to bring to light things that we've never thought of before.

That's Leanne Guy.

She's a key member of the team operating the new Vera Rubin Observatory, which is located on a mountaintop in Chile.

The telescope in the Rubin Observatory is like no other ever built.

And it's expected to find things in the universe that no other telescope has ever been able to see.

I've heard that the Rubin Observatory is going to radically change astronomy.

Is that because it's constructed in a way that other telescopes have not been up until now?

Yes, yes, that's very correct.

So Rubin Observatory is an 8-metre class telescope.

There are several 8-metre-class telescope. There are several 8-metre

class telescopes around the world already. We have a few in Hawaii. There are some in Chile,

the Grand Canary Islands, and other places. So by an 8-meter-class telescope, I mean it's got an 8-meter

wide mirror. That in itself is not revolutionary, but what's very revolutionary about

Ruben is it combines three key characteristics of telescopes.

It has a very, very large mirror area.

It has a large light collecting area.

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