New observatory will reveal millions of objects hidden in our solar system

Astronomers anticipate a significant leap in our understanding of the solar system later this year, thanks to a powerful new observatory in Chile.

Millions of previously unseen asteroids, comets, and minor planets will soon come into view, offering the most detailed look yet at our cosmic neighborhood.

At the heart of this breakthrough is the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, currently nearing completion on Cerro Pachón in northern Chile. Once fully operational, the facility will dramatically expand our knowledge of the solar system’s so-called “small bodies.”

These include everything from near-Earth asteroids to distant objects in the Kuiper Belt – remnants from the birth of the planets over 4.5 billion years ago.

Surveying the sky in detail

The Rubin Observatory houses the Simonyi Survey Telescope, an 8.4-meter instrument with an innovative three-mirror design.

The LSST Camera, part of the Legacy Survey of Space and Time, is the largest digital camera ever built for astronomy. It boasts 3.2 gigapixels and a 9.6 square-degree field of view – about 45 times the size of the full moon.

Over ten years, this system will scan the entire visible sky repeatedly, capturing a dynamic time-lapse of celestial activity and generating about 20 terabytes of data every night.

What will we find in the solar system?

To predict what Rubin will reveal, astronomers developed Sorcha, a unique open-source simulator. Sorcha digests the observatory’s planned sky-viewing schedule and applies the best models of how small bodies are distributed throughout the solar system.

“Accurate simulation software like Sorcha is critical,” said Meg Schwamb, a researcher at Queen’s University Belfast who led the development of the software.

“It tells us what Rubin will discover and lets us know how to interpret it. Our knowledge of what objects fill Earth’s solar system is about to expand exponentially and rapidly.”

Sorcha is the first tool of its kind to model the Rubin Observatory’s entire detection process, from imaging to object classification. It allows researchers to estimate how many and what kinds of objects the observatory will find once scanning begins.

A fossil record in space

The solar system is not just home to the eight planets and their moons. It also contains tens of millions of small bodies that formed alongside them.

These icy and rocky relics act like fossils, preserving clues about how planets came together, how they migrated, and even how Earth acquired water and organic material.

“Rubin’s unparalleled combination of breadth and depth makes it a uniquely effective discovery machine,” said Jake Kurlander, a doctoral student at the University of Washington.

“It took 225 years of astronomical observations to detect the first 1.5 million asteroids. Rubin will double that number in less than a year.”

Unprecedented solar system census

Simulations using Sorcha show that Rubin will transform our inventory of solar system objects. Researchers expect it to find 127,000 near-Earth objects – more than triple the current tally of about 38,000.

Importantly, this includes over 70% of all potentially hazardous asteroids larger than 140 meters, a major boost to Earth’s planetary defense efforts.

The telescope is also projected to discover over five million main-belt asteroids, nearly quadrupling today’s known population. Scientists will track about one-third of these with precise color and rotation data, helping them piece together their histories and compositions.

A new look at ancient worlds

Another exciting target: the Jupiter Trojans. These ancient objects share Jupiter’s orbit in stable zones called Lagrange points. Rubin could uncover 109,000 of them – more than seven times the current count – offering a rare glimpse into some of the most pristine material from the early solar system.

Farther out, Rubin is expected to detect 37,000 trans-Neptunian objects in the Kuiper Belt, ten times the number known today. These discoveries could reveal details about Neptune’s early movements and the shaping of the solar system’s outer edge.

The observatory will also chart between 1,500 and 2,000 Centaurs, unusual bodies with unstable orbits between the giant planets. Many Centaurs eventually become short-period comets. Rubin will provide the first in-depth look at this transitional stage.

Mario Juric is an astronomer at the University of Washington and a key contributor to Rubin’s Solar System Processing Pipelines.

“With this data, we’ll be able to update the textbooks of solar system formation and vastly improve our ability to spot – and potentially deflect – the asteroids that could threaten Earth,” he said.

A new view of the solar system

Rubin will do more than count small bodies. It will observe each one repeatedly using different filters, revealing their surface colors. Most past surveys used just one filter, which limited what astronomers could learn.

“With the LSST catalog of solar system objects, our work shows that it will be like going from black-and-white television to brilliant color,” said Joe Murtagh, a doctoral student at Queen’s University.

Siegfried Eggl, an aerospace engineer at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, highlighted Sorcha’s importance in handling this data flood.

“Only by debiasing LSST’s complex observing pattern can we turn raw detections into a true reflection of the solar system’s history – where the planets formed, and how they migrated over billions of years,” he said. “Sorcha is a game changer in that respect.”

Rubin Observatory will release its first public images of the solar system during the “First Look” event on June 23. The observatory expects to begin full science operations later in the year.

With Sorcha and the LSST Camera ready, astronomers around the world are preparing for a revolution in how we understand our solar system.

Image Credit: RubinObs/ NSF/ DOE/ NOIRLab/ SLAC/AURA/ Hernan Stockebrand

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