“DUNE has officially moved from vision to reality as installation at the underground site in South Dakota kicks off, and a critical parallel focus for the collaboration is ensuring we are absolutely ready to analyze our very first data,” said DUNE co-spokesperson Sowjanya Gollapinni. “This inaugural DUNE Data Analysis School hosted by NPC plays a key role in training our early-career members in the software and analysis tools needed to handle that initial data head on. Plus, a fantastic bonus outcome is that we now have our first-ever official curriculum that future schools can build upon!”

Modeled on Fermilab’s long-running CMS Data Analysis School, which is hosted by the LHC Physics Center at Fermilab, the weeklong program marked an important milestone in building the future scientific expertise needed as DUNE takes shape.

The school curriculum focuses on data analysis training tailored specifically for DUNE. Graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in DUNE, including new collaborators, are provided with hands-on training in the experiment’s software, including artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques, computing infrastructure and modern analysis workflows. Through lectures, tutorials and collaborative team projects, participants gain practical experience in simulation, reconstruction, event selection and the core tools essential for DUNE physics analyses.

Participants received intensive instruction from DUNE software, computing and analysis experts with preparatory computing sessions offered in advance. The program of practical, structured lessons allowed early-career DUNE scientists to get up to speed faster so that they can rapidly begin preparing impactful analyses within the collaboration.

“Developments in computing continue to move at an incredible speed, and it is essential to have opportunities for new DUNE members to quickly learn the computing and software concepts of DUNE software,” said Mike Kirby of Brookhaven National Laboratory, who serves as Core Software and Computing Consortium lead in DUNE and lectured during the school. “The DUNE Data Analysis School hosted by the Neutrino Physics Center brought together experts from across the collaboration to help young DUNE members establish a foundation in computing, software and analysis, and accelerate their contributions to the exciting science that DUNE will deliver in the coming years.”

Neutrino Physics Center coordinators, organizers and the DUNE collaboration envision the school becoming an annual program and a cornerstone of software and analysis workforce development and training for DUNE — helping ensure that the next generation of DUNE physicists is equipped to maximize the experiment’s unprecedented scientific potential.

“None of this would have been possible without the tireless work of the NPC, the local organizing committee and the program committee,” added Gollapinni. “Building a brand-new curriculum from scratch and keeping the whole event running smoothly is no small feat.”

Fermilab plays an important role in the operation of the NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), leveraging the lab’s operational experience and extensive expertise from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the Dark Energy Survey, and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument. LSST aims to better understand the fundamental physics of the universe. 

As part of the LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration funded by DOE, Fermilab is deeply involved in Rubin science by supporting Rubin Observatory data management, data processing, survey strategy, scientific validation and verification, and community science. 

The launch of LSST marks an exciting milestone in Fermilab’s more than 35-year history of enabling groundbreaking optical and near-infrared survey experiments of the cosmos.

From a mountaintop in Chile, under clear dark skies, NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory has begun the revolutionary Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). The ten-year survey is Rubin’s signature campaign to create the most comprehensive, cinematic record of the Universe in history.

Rubin Observatory is a U.S. government facility jointly operated by NSF NOIRLab and DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. NOIRLab is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA).

Over the next ten years, Rubin will relentlessly observe the entire southern sky every few nights to create an ultra-wide, ultra-high-definition time-lapse record of our Universe. This long-awaited milestone is the culmination of years of effort by thousands of people around the world. It follows the celebratory Rubin First Look event that took place in June 2025, which was followed by final commissioning work, an operational readiness review, and the beginning of the alert stream.

“Today, we begin filming the greatest cosmic movie ever made,” says Brian Stone, performing the duties of the NSF Director. “This moment reflects decades of vision, innovation, and the power of federal investment in science through the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy. Every night, NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory will expand the frontiers of knowledge and strengthen America’s global leadership in science and innovation.”

“With the launch of the ten-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time, NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory is opening a new window on the Universe. It is embarking on a mission that will redefine modern cosmology and astrophysics,” says Darío Gil, Under Secretary for Science at the U.S. Department of Energy. “With its world-class design and tools, Rubin Observatory will capture the dynamic nature of our cosmos and reveal unimagined insights into our Universe’s biggest mysteries, from our own Solar System to the very structure of the Universe. By seeking to understand the enigmatic phenomena of dark energy and dark matter, we are not just observing the stars; we are striving to grasp the fundamental laws that govern our existence.”

“It is amazing and humbling to be here at this time and place as we start the Legacy Survey of Space and Time, after more than two decades of incredible work by our dedicated team,” says Bob Blum, Director of Rubin Observatory at NSF NOIRLab. “Rubin Observatory is for everyone; the LSST will change how we do astronomy and astrophysics, allowing researchers anywhere to participate in cutting-edge science.”

“It’s taken 20 years of hard science, engineering, and more to get to the point where we can call ‘action’ as we start rolling on this blockbuster movie of the Universe,” says Phil Marshall, Deputy Director of Rubin Operations for SLAC.“Millions of alerts in just the last couple of months show that Rubin is up and running as a discovery machine. Now we’re putting it all together.”

“The decision to officially begin the LSST was made after a period of system optimization and a careful operational review of technical readiness, data system performance, and scientific validation,” says Željko Ivezić, Head of LSST. Important factors that played a role in this decision included image quality, effective survey speed, system uptime and reliability, and calibration accuracy.

Rubin Observatory’s unique design combines enormous light-collecting power, the ability to move rapidly across the sky, and a wide field of view. Its 3200-megapixel camera — the largest digital camera in the world — is now capturing a new, detailed image approximately every 40 seconds. Operating with this speed and sensitivity, Rubin functions as a unified, well-tuned system capable of catching faint objects and fleeting events with remarkable reliability and consistency every night. Visit rubinobservatory.org to follow the status of the LSST in real time (and visit the real-time Alert Dashboard).

Rubin is bringing the Universe to life, illuminating a treasure trove of discoveries: pulsating stars, supernova explosions, the fossil record of galaxies, clues to the mysteries of dark energy and dark matter, and entirely new phenomena we’ve never seen before. Some cosmic processes unfold slowly, unpredictably, or incredibly rarely, which is why a ten-year survey is essential. By returning to each point in the sky about 800 times over a decade, Rubin data is providing the scientific community with deep, time-rich views needed to uncover subtle events, capture moving objects, and study the accelerating expansion of the Universe.

Not only is Rubin helping to unlock the mysteries of the distant Universe, it is also the most powerful Solar System discovery machine ever built. By taking about a thousand images every night, Rubin is compiling an astonishingly detailed census of our Solar System, including millions of asteroids and comets. In just a month and a half, during early optimization surveys, Rubin discovered over 11,000 never-before-seen asteroids, including 33 near-Earth objects and 380 trans-Neptunian objects [1].

Rubin will also advance opportunities for multi-messenger astronomy, which is the study of cosmic events using multiple signals such as light, gravitational waves, and cosmic rays. The observatory’s rapid, color-rich observations of transients such as stellar explosions, actively feeding black holes, and collisions between compact objects will guide telescopes around the world to follow up on these fleeting events.

Each night, Rubin is collecting approximately ten terabytes of data and producing as many as seven million alerts of changes in the night sky. These alerts stream to alert brokers — automated systems that sort and classify these changes so scientists can act quickly.

When the LSST is complete, the final dataset will contain billions of objects with trillions of measurements, all accessible through regular data releases. This is the first time so much astronomical data will be available to so many people, opening the door to new kinds of discovery by both scientists and the public. Rubin invites anyone in the world to engage with its data and explore the dynamic Universe in ways never before possible.

Founded in 2014, NuSTEC is an international initiative dedicated to fostering cross-disciplinary teamwork between experimentalists and theorists working primarily around particle accelerator-based neutrino research programs. Ultimately, NuSTEC’s goal is to drive higher precision in neutrino-interaction physics across a wide range of experiments, including the upcoming Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment — hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

“NuSTEC has played an important role in my professional and scientific development, and it is a genuine privilege for me to help continue supporting and strengthening our community and our mission in this role as co-spokesperson,” Pandey said.

With its international Short-Baseline Neutrino Program and leadership in developing the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility for DUNE, Fermilab has become a center for neutrino research, and its scientists have been integral in the growth and success of NuSTEC.

“From founding co-spokesperson Jorge Morfin to outgoing co-spokesperson Jonathan Paley, Fermilab scientists have played a central role in shaping NuSTEC into the strong international collaboration it is today,” Pandey added.

Pandey, who started at Fermilab through a prestigious Wilson Fellowship in 2022, said his academic and professional career have been shaped by working at the intersection of experiment and theory.

For the past 16 years, Pandey’s work has focused on neutrino–nucleus cross-section physics, and he has worked in several areas of the NuSTEC ecosystem.

“In this way, my career has naturally evolved at the intersection of theory and experiment — the same intersection that NuSTEC was created to support,” Pandey said. “My scientific identity has been shaped by the core mission of NuSTEC.”

Neutrinos are among the most abundant yet elusive particles in the universe, capable of passing through entire planets almost without interacting. To study them, scientists observe the rare occasions when a neutrino collides with the nucleus of an atom, a process known as neutrino-nucleus scattering.

“In our experiments, these interactions occur inside large detectors and produce tiny flashes and particle tracks that allow researchers to infer the neutrino’s properties,” Pandey explained. “Understanding these interactions is essential because the nucleus is not a simple target; complex nuclear effects can alter the visible signals in the detector and affect how accurately scientists reconstruct the neutrino’s energy and infer neutrino properties.”

Precise knowledge of neutrino-nucleus scattering therefore plays an important role in current and next-generation accelerator-based neutrino experiments that aim to study neutrino oscillations, investigate why matter dominates over antimatter in the universe, and search for new physics beyond the Standard Model. The same physics also connects to astrophysics, including the study of supernova explosions and the behavior of matter under extreme conditions.

Current NuSTEC co-spokesperson Natalie Jachowicz of Ghent University in Belgium is excited to welcome Pandey to his role. “Vishvas has been active at the intersection of theory and experiment in neutrino interactions for many years and has a thorough understanding of the needs of the field, Jachowicz said. “I am very much looking forward to working with him on the role NuSTEC will play for the neutrino physics community in the exciting times ahead.”

“I would like to thank Jonathan Paley for his work as co-spokesperson over the past six years. Thanks to his dedication, NuSTEC has grown into the broad and active community it is today,” Jachowicz added.

Pandey noted that the chief goal for his tenure is to maintain a strong focus on the next generation of experiments. “During my term, our next-generation experiments, DUNE and Hyper-Kamiokande in Japan, will begin approaching operation,” Pandey said. “Now is the time to move the focus to that next generation and concentrate on how we can enable these experiments to achieve discovery-level precision.”

Pandey also hopes to explore the potential for artificial intelligence to assist with the goals of NuSTEC by creating a new working group focused on AI. Leveraging the power of AI could potentially strengthen the collaboration’s ability to answer some of the challenging questions it is pursuing.

“New tools, including AI and machine learning, are beginning to play an important role in neutrino interaction studies,” Pandey said. “NuSTEC could provide a natural platform for coordinating these efforts across experimental collaborations and theory groups, and I would support the creation of a working group focused on this area.”

Later this year at Fermilab, the collaboration will hold the NuSTEC School to train both graduate students and postdoctoral researchers and further cooperative work between neutrino theorists and experimentalists. “There is a clear need for this across the community, and this school will help bring together the next generation of scientists to Fermilab to train them in model development, data sharing and the broader theoretical and experimental landscape of neutrino interaction physics,” Pandey said.