Mar 1, 2026 · 1 hr 15 min · 12 segments
The Vera Rubin Observatory has just started taking its first data this month. We have a special guest (Dr. Daniel Polin) who helped in the construction of the camera for Rubin. This digital camera was…
Daniel PolinGuestPaul DuffellHostSo let me, [clears throat] uh, may, uh, we can get more into the science later, but I may, I may as well, uh, since you bring it up, uh, let's dig into it a little bit, is where you said, um, you talked about gravitational lensing, and you said y- it has to, uh, it's a way of looking for dark matter and that you have to look at a bunch of the sky.
... and light, uh, travels along, uh, st- what would be straight lines but on a curved surface.
Uh, and so if you have a massive object and light is going, uh, around it at an angle, it can get redirected, and so you get, uh, different looking objects than you would otherwise.
So this is the same thing that, uh, Edding- Eddington, uh, discovered or was able to show, uh, to dem-
in be- to, to show that light, that starlight was bent around the sun, de- deflected slightly as it star- as the starlight passed around the sun, uh, just basically due to the sun's gravitational field.
So same idea, but now it's we're not just looking at the sun and a little bit of a deflection of a starlight, but you're looking at, uh, galaxies and galaxy clusters, and so these very massive systems and seeing how light is sort of bent around them.
Uh, the ones that make nice pictures are the, uh, the strong gravitational lensing.
So let me, [clears throat] uh, may, uh, we can get more into the science later, but I may, I may as well, uh, since you bring it up, uh, let's dig into it a little bit, is where you said, um, you talked about gravitational lensing, and you said y- it has to, uh, it's a way of looking for dark matter and that you have to look at a bunch of the sky.
... and light, uh, travels along, uh, st- what would be straight lines but on a curved surface.
Uh, and so if you have a massive object and light is going, uh, around it at an angle, it can get redirected, and so you get, uh, different looking objects than you would otherwise.
So this is the same thing that, uh, Edding- Eddington, uh, discovered or was able to show, uh, to dem-
in be- to, to show that light, that starlight was bent around the sun, de- deflected slightly as it star- as the starlight passed around the sun, uh, just basically due to the sun's gravitational field.
So same idea, but now it's we're not just looking at the sun and a little bit of a deflection of a starlight, but you're looking at, uh, galaxies and galaxy clusters, and so these very massive systems and seeing how light is sort of bent around them.
Uh, the ones that make nice pictures are the, uh, the strong gravitational lensing.
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