Stargazing with Computers: What Machine Learning Can Teach Us about the Cosmos

Gazing up at the night sky in a rural area, you'll probably see the shining moon surrounded by stars. If you're lucky, you might spot the furthest thing visible with the naked eye – the Andromeda galaxy. When the Department of Energy's (DOE) Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) Camera at the National Science Foundation's Vera Rubin Observatory turns on in 2022, it will take photos of 37 billion galaxies and stars over the course of a decade. The output from this huge telescope will swamp researchers with data. In those 10 years, the LSST Camera will take 2,000 photos for each patch of the Southern Sky it covers.