Heads up! The world will soon have new eyes on the skies.

The Dynamic Red All-Sky Monitoring Survey (DREAMS) telescope, expected to be completed next year, will completely change the game on how astronomers view the universe.

Using new infrared technology and increased shutter speeds, the telescope will be able to monitor the skies more continuously and rapidly than ever before. 

In a press release, Anna Moore, Director of the Australian National University Institute for Space said “This ‘real-time’ astronomy, which allows us to study events taking place over months, weeks or days instead of millions of years, is a window into the great unknown.”

In astronomy, “real-time” works a little bit differently. When a cosmic event happens, such as a star exploding (called a “supernova”), the light takes millions of years to travel to Earth. 

However, using the continuous monitoring of DREAMS, scientists will be able to document the whole event as the light reaches Earth. It’s like upgrading from a single photograph to a video.

 “Infrared telescopes can study dusty and distant regions of space that are impenetrable to optical telescopes, unveiling new stars, nebulae, mergers, galaxies, supernovae, quasars and other sources of radiation new to science,” says Moore.

“DREAMS will allow us to ‘see’ the universe in an entirely new way,” she added.