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WASHINGTON — A celebration of the long-awaited first images from a major new observatory is overshadowed by the fears astronomers have about proposed severe budget cuts at the agency funding them.
At a press conference June 23, astronomers unveiled the first images taken by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, an 8.4-meter telescope in Chile. The telescope, with a wide field of view, is equipped with a 3,200-megapixel camera and designed to scan the night sky every few nights.
The images, from just over 10 hours of test observations, have demonstrated the potential of the telescope to reshape astronomy. The images revealed 10 million galaxies and also led to the discovery of more than 2,000 asteroids. Astronomers expect Rubin data to play key roles in fields ranging from planetary science to cosmology.
“Rubin Observatory will capture more information about our universe than all optical telescopes throughout history combined,” Brian Stone, serving as acting director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), said.
NSF was the major contributor to the development of Rubin, providing $571 million of the project’s overall cost of $810 million. The Department of Energy’s Office of Science was the other major contributor, funding the telescope’s camera.
The rollout of the Rubin images, though, took place as the NSF, the leading U.S. government agency funding ground-based astronomy, is facing several budget cuts. The administration’s proposed fiscal year 2026 budget would cut the overall NSF budget by 56%, from $8.83 billion in 2025 to $3.9 billion. Funding for the NSF’s Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate, which includes astronomy, would be cut by two-thirds to just over $500 million.
The NSF has not provided any further details about the budget proposal and its impact on astronomy. That includes whether it would affect operations of Rubin Observatory just as it starts a planned 10-year survey.
At the press conference, staff blocked questions about the budget proposal. When a reporter covering the event online submitted a question about the effect of the proposed cuts on the observatory, a moderator responded, “Thank you. We will not take budget or policy questions. Only science questions.”
A moderator also deflected a similar question posed by another reporter attending the press conference in person: “We’re not going to speculate as to future funding levels or the effect of future funding levels.”
The budget document suggests that Rubin would be spared the worst of the cuts. It stated that it would “emphasize” support for Rubin among a handful of other major research infrastructure across the NSF. It proposed $32 million for Rubin operations, up from $17.7 million when it was still in the final phases of development. However, the American Astronomical Society (AAS) noted the requested funding for Rubin in 2026 is 20% less than previously projected for the start of operations.
Other observatories will not be as fortunate. It proposes a 40% cut for the operations of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory, or LIGO, a pair of gravitational wave observatories in Louisiana and Washington whose studies of the universe yielded a Nobel Prize in physics in 2017. NSF says it will close one of the two observatories, a move astronomers argue would severely reduce the effectiveness of LIGO.
The budget would also reduce operations of other major optical and radio astronomy, as well as solar astronomy, facilities. Some observatories, such as those operated at Kitt Peak in Arizona and Cerro Tololo in Chile, would see access “phased out” in the budget, with the telescopes transferred to other organizations.
Astronomers have been both concerned about the cuts and frustrated by the lack of details about the proposal the NSF has shared since the release of the proposal. At an AAS conference earlier this month in Anchorage, Alaska, the NSF canceled a previously scheduled town hall, an event it usually holds at such conferences to talk about the state of the agency.
NASA has also been reticent to discuss its science budget, which includes steep cuts to astrophysics and other fields. The agency canceled its own town hall planned for the AAS meeting. It later announced an online town hall for June 12 to discuss the overall science budget, only to cancel it a day before, citing the need to “brief internal staff and hold discussions” about the budget proposal.
In planetary science, agency officials have participated in meetings of the Outer Planets Assessment Group and Small Bodies Assessment Group only through prerecorded presentations, not answering any questions.
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