For a telescope designed to create the largest movie of the night sky, one small comet shooting through our solar system is tiny in the grand scheme of cosmic moments to come, but it’s a sign of the exciting things to come from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.

The $571-million National Science Foundation and Department of Energy facility on top of the summit of Cerro Pachon in Chile is still in commissioning and set to begin the 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time later this fall, creating the largest astronomical movie yet of the Southern Hemisphere. In June, the public got its first look at what the world’s largest digital camera can do with just a fraction of its viewing field. Over a few nights of viewing, Rubin discovered thousands of asteroids .

So when the interstellar comet 3I/

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