When we gaze up at a star-filled night sky, we often feel a sense of awe and wonder.
But for scientists, those thousands of points of light are also a vast treasure trove of information—about how the universe began, what’s out there now, and what might come next.
The stars don’t just inspire curiosity—they hold clues that can help us understand the science of our own planet as well.
At the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), a group of researchers works to collect and make sense of this cosmic data.
One of them is Stephen Pietrowicz, a principal research software engineer with the Center for AstroPhysical Surveys (CAPS).
He’s been playing a key role in one of the most ambitious astronomy projects ever: the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.
The Rubin Observatory is building the largest digital camera in the world and will use it to scan the night sky for 10 years as part of the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST).
The telescope, located in Chile, will gather an enormous amount of information—around 500 petabytes of images.
To put that in perspective, that’s more data than all the videos on YouTube combined. Processing this much information requires powerful software and experienced people to manage it. That’s where Pietrowicz comes in.
He first joined NCSA in the 1990s and returned in 2005 when an opportunity opened up on the Rubin project. Over the years, his role has evolved. Now he’s part of the Rubin Data Management group’s middleware team.
One of his main responsibilities is writing software that helps move, store, and organize the telescope’s images so they can be quickly accessed and analyzed by scientists around the world.
One system he created, called the Observatory Operations Data Service (OODS), receives images from the telescope and makes them immediately available for researchers.
His work also helps sites in other countries—including France, the UK, and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California—process and use this data.
All of the tools he develops are open source, meaning other researchers can reuse and adapt them for different scientific projects.
According to Pietrowicz, the Rubin Observatory will open up new possibilities for both scientists and the public. It will provide massive, high-resolution images of the night sky, giving astronomers more material than ever for discoveries. For the public, it’s a chance to experience the universe in ways never before possible.
As the project shifts from construction to operations later this year, Pietrowicz is preparing for the next chapter. He’s excited to keep supporting CAPS and help turn starlight into scientific breakthroughs for years to come.
