Measuring Distances in the Universe

Over its ten-year survey, Rubin Observatory will detect about 20 billion galaxies, most of them very faint because of their large distances from Earth. The Rubin Observatory LSST Camera captures the brightness of these galaxies through different filters, which are then measured and compared to models for the light from galaxies at different distances. The distance of the best matching model is used to estimate the distance for the observed galaxy.