Coming to a Screen Near You: The Rubin Observatory Education and Public Outreach Program

The Rubin Observatory Education and Public Outreach (EPO) team has begun to roll out a program that invites teens and adults to engage with Rubin Observatory and explore the Universe. Like Rubin Observatory as a whole, the EPO program capitalizes on new technologies and strategies — in this case to reach a whole new audience of science-interested teens and adults who might not already be engaged with, or highly knowledgeable about, astronomy. This focus on reaching a broader audience through a data-driven, interactive EPO program appealed to the US National Science Foundation (NSF), which provided construction funding for Rubin Observatory. In fact, the Rubin EPO program is the first astronomy outreach program to be fully funded by NSF during a project’s construction phase. Havin