Funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory is an 18-story facility that will repeatedly scan the sky for 10 years with an 8.4-meter telescope equipped with the largest camera ever built.

The first deep space images from a mountaintop observatory in Chile have scientists excited for what they could soon learn about distant galaxies and dark matter. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory boasts a 3,200-megapixel camera that can capture and transmit massive amounts of data.

Featuring never-before-seen views of galaxies and more than 2,100 newly discovered asteroids, the observations are only a taste of what to expect from the telescope's upcoming decade-long survey