The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History (SBMNH), on June 25, hosted a First Look event in partnership with Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO), showing the first images from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.

The glow of the Milky Way reflects off of Rubin Observatory's silver dome in a photo from May 2025. (Quint)
The glow of the Milky Way reflects off of Rubin Observatory’s silver dome in a photo from May 2025. (Quint)

As the museum prepares to launch its Space Sciences exhibit, called Our Cosmic Coast, on July 12, the debut event offered an early glimpse into the global discoveries and local science shaping our understanding of the universe, SBMNH said.

Located in Chile, the Rubin Observatory is the most powerful survey telescope ever built.

Over the next decade, it will scan the southern sky every few nights as part of the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), capturing dynamic events like supernovae, near-Earth asteroids, and black hole mergers, and helping to unravel mysteries like dark matter.

“The Rubin Observatory will observe countless objects in our local universe that have never been seen before.” said Lisa Storrie-Lombardi, LCO Observatory director.

“LCO scientists have been preparing for this for over a decade, and we can’t wait to see what exciting things Rubin reveals,” she said.

Santa Barbara-based Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO) plays a key role in the Rubin Observatory’s mission. With the only global network of robotic telescopes, LCO is positioned to track and study new cosmic events discovered by Rubin in real time.

LCO scientists have been instrumental in shaping the project through their leadership in the LSST Discovery Alliance, a collaborative network supporting the Rubin survey’s scientific goals.

The museum’s First Look event featured a live broadcast of Rubin’s debut images, interactive displays, and a preview of themes that will be explored in its upcoming Space Sciences exhibit.

“Opening July 12, the exhibit will build public familiarity with the dynamics of the solar system and an appreciation for how astronomers constantly build on past discoveries to refine our understanding of the cosmos,” according to SBMNH.

“Our Gladwin Planetarium allows us to make space more accessible and bring it a little closer to home,” Ila Jad Komasa, SBMNH Astronomy Programs manager said of the the co-produced event.

“We have an amazing opportunity to take these remarkable images from Rubin Observatory and explore them in our planetarium. I am thrilled to collaborate with LCO to celebrate this milestone of astronomy,” Komasa said.

For more about SBMNH, visit sbnature.org.