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NOIRLab observing specialists Carlos Morales (left) and Karla Peña (right) in the Rubin summit control room at Rubin’s mountaintop site of Cerro Pachón, Chile.

Remote eyes on the sky: Inside SLAC’s Rubin control room

09/23/25

Gaëlle Suter

With survey operations set to begin this fall, the Rubin control room at SLAC will serve as a key hub for training and remote observing support for the NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory.

The shipping crate holding the LSST Camera is transported the final 35 kilometers (21.7 miles) up the winding dirt road to the observatory on the summit of Cerro Pachón.

05/22/24

LSST Camera arrives at Rubin Observatory in Chile

The largest camera ever built for astrophysics has completed the long journey from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California to the summit of Cerro Pachón in Chile.

Illustration: A student scientist embroiders their graduation cap with atom

05/07/24

Tomorrow’s physics test: machine learning

Machine learning is becoming an essential part of a physicist’s toolkit. How should new students learn to use it?

Illustration of a scientist cutting a piece of bias tape with scissors

05/06/24

A physicists’ guide to the ethics of artificial intelligence

Physics may seem like its own world, but different sectors using machine learning are all part of the same universe.

Illustration of a scientist pinpointing part of a galaxy through the lens of a magnifying glass

05/01/24

AI for control rooms

Scientists inside and outside of particle physics and astrophysics are leaning on AI for assistance with complex tasks.

Illustration of someone embroidering a particle collision

04/30/24

Machine learning and theory

Theoretical physicists use machine-learning algorithms to speed up difficult calculations and eliminate untenable theories—but could they transform what it means to make discoveries?

Illustration of a scientist knitting an image of a galaxy

04/25/24

Machine learning and experiment

For more than 20 years in experimental particle physics and astrophysics, machine learning has been accelerating the pace of science, helping scientists tackle problems of greater and greater complexity.

Conceptual illustration of a triangle loom

04/23/24

A collaborative ecosystem

Physicists work with computer scientists in academia and industry to advance machine learning.

Illustration of someone reading a physics vocabulary booklet

04/18/24

Physics vocabulary: AI edition

Don’t know your convolutional neural networks from your boosted decision trees? Symmetry is here to help.

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