Largest digital camera releases first glamor shots

20 BILLION AND COUNTING This image provided by the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory shows another small section of the observatory's total view of the Virgo cluster. —PHOTOS BY AP

NEW YORK—The largest digital camera ever built released its first glamor shots of the universe Monday—including colorful nebulas, stars and galaxies.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, located on a mountaintop in Chile, was built to take a deeper look at the night sky, covering hidden corners. Funded by the US National Science Foundation and US Department of Energy, it will survey the southern sky for the next 10 years.

This image provided by the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory shows 678 separate images taken by the observatory in just over seven hours of observing time.

The observatory’s first look features the vibrant Trifid and Lagoon nebulas located thousands of light-years from Earth. A light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles. A gaggle of galaxies known as the Virgo Cluster were also captured, including two bright blue spirals.

The observatory hopes to image 20 billion galaxies and discover new asteroids and other celestial objects.

The effort is named after astronomer Vera Rubin, who offered the first tantalizing evidence that a mysterious force called dark matter might be lurking in the universe. Researchers hope the observatory’s discerning camera may yield clues about this elusive entity along with another called dark energy.