UK scientists are opening an unprecedented window on the changing Universe, as the Vera C. Rubin Observatory begins issuing live alerts of events unfolding across the night sky.
From 25 February 2026, UK astronomers started providing real time updates on dramatic cosmic activity, including exploding stars, feeding black holes and asteroids moving through our solar system.
The effort forms part of a major investment by the Science and Technology Facilities Council, STFC, within UK Research and Innovation. The programme enables the United Kingdom to play a leading role in the Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time, LSST, one of the most ambitious astronomical surveys ever attempted.
UK-developed system powers discovery
At the heart of the UK contribution is a powerful software system called Lasair, developed by scientists and engineers at Queen’s University Belfast, the University of Edinburgh and the University of Oxford.
Lasair filters millions of alerts produced by the Rubin Observatory every night, allowing astronomers to rapidly identify important changes in the sky and unlock new scientific opportunities.
The system processes a vast stream of information produced by the Rubin Observatory’s enormous digital camera, the largest ever built for astronomy.
Handling a deluge of cosmic data
Each night, powerful UK computers process an immense flow of data captured by the observatory. The information is then made available to researchers through the Lasair web portal.
The computers that operate Lasair form part of IRIS, a major UK digital research infrastructure supporting astronomy, particle physics and nuclear physics.
Over the next decade, UK scientists will analyse around 10 million images captured during the LSST. These images will allow researchers to identify and measure billions of stars and galaxies, most of which have never previously been detected.
The first Rubin alerts were distributed to researchers worldwide on the night of 24 February. They revealed new supernovae, flickering stars, black holes actively feeding in distant galaxies and asteroids travelling through our solar system.
A decade of discovery begins
Professor Bob Mann, Professor of Survey Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh and Project Leader for UK participation in the Rubin LSST, said the achievement marks a major milestone for British astronomy.
He explained that the Lasair alert broker is one of the key contributions the United Kingdom is making to the Rubin project. Over the past decade the team used simulated data and earlier sky surveys to build a sophisticated system capable of identifying rare and time varying celestial phenomena within the vast stream of Rubin data.
He added that the launch marks the beginning of an exciting decade of scientific discovery for astronomers in the UK and around the world.
Rapid alerts from the edge of the Universe
Professor Stephen Smartt, the Wetton Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford and scientific lead of the Lasair team, said the system will deliver powerful early science from Rubin.
Lasair, a Gaelic word meaning flame or flash, enables users to detect objects that move or explode in space within minutes of images being taken at the observatory in Chile.
The Rubin Observatory will capture an image every 30 seconds for ten years. Each night those images are expected to contain around seven million sources that have changed in some way.
Finding the unexpected
Dr Roy Williams of the University of Edinburgh, who has led development of Lasair for more than a decade, said the platform allows scientists to create custom filters to search the data stream.
Each user can design their own filtering method, allowing Lasair to sift through the massive flow of nightly data and highlight events that match specific scientific interests.
Researchers hope this flexibility will help uncover entirely new phenomena hidden within what Dr Williams described as a glorious deluge of information.
Filtering the sky for discovery
Over its ten year operation Lasair will ingest and process millions of alerts from Rubin’s LSST survey, enabling scientists to focus on the most significant cosmic changes.
These include supernovae and variable stars, gamma ray bursts, black holes consuming stars and asteroids passing through the solar system.
Dr Héloïse Stevance of the University of Oxford, a Schmidt Artificial Intelligence in Science Fellow, has already used Lasair to build an automated filter that identifies extragalactic explosions.
The system helps researchers find rare events without being overwhelmed by the millions of alerts generated each night.
Dr Stevance said the vastness of the sky means discovery in modern astronomy must come through cooperation between human expertise and intelligent algorithms.
A national investment in discovery
UK participation in the Rubin LSST has so far been supported by £23 million of investment from the Science and Technology Facilities Council.
Across 36 research institutions, scientists and software engineers are working together to overcome the scientific and technical challenges of analysing the enormous dataset the observatory will produce.
The LSST UK Consortium has established the LSST UK Science Centre, a distributed national team dedicated to unlocking the full scientific potential of the survey for British astronomy.
Computational power is provided through the STFC funded IRIS infrastructure.
The start of scientific alerts marks one of the final milestones before the Rubin Observatory begins its full sky survey later this year.
For the United Kingdom and its scientific partners, it signals the beginning of a decade long exploration into some of the greatest mysteries of the cosmos, including the origins of elements, the behaviour of black holes and the large scale structure of the Universe.
Source: https://www.ukri.org/news/uk-scientists-open-window-to-our-vast-and-ever-changing-universe/
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