Images unveil new look at the universe taken from world's largest camera built in Bay Area

MENLO PARK, Calif. (KGO) -- Amazing images of the universe were unveiled Monday, taken by the world's largest space camera built here in the Bay Area.

That 6,000-pound camera was built at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park and brought to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile. The observatory is jointly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.

It has the largest lens built for astronomy so it could see as much of the sky as possible.

Monday, a watch party was held where the staff at SLAC got to see some of the first images from the observatory.

The unveiling of the images happened in Washington D.C. where it was streamed out for SLAC and people around the world to see.

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The images showed off stars, galaxies and cosmic dust along with asteroids that have never been able to have been captured before.

The image shows off just a small percentage of what the camera has captured.

In order for the human eye to see the entire image the, you'd need to have 400 Ultra HD TVs.

Those behind the Observatory say the information the images will bring are priceless.

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"The entire Rubin team is so excited about this data, we have been talking about this data for over two decades. It's finally here," said Zeljko Ivezic, director of Rubin Construction and professor of Astronomy at University of Washington.

All of this is set culminate into the Legacy Survey of Space and Time.

For 10 years, the camera will scan the sky repeatedly, creating an incredibly detailed time-lapse record of the universe.

The hope is to study a range of things like dark energy causing the universe's expansion plus, how galaxies form across the entire universe.

The data collected from the camera is public so it will be open to the entire US science community and select foreign partners.

The 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time is set to start later this year, something experts expect to lead to incredible discoveries.