The world’s largest digital camera, built for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), will soon help astronomers peer deeper into the universe. The 3.2 pixel device, weighing roughly three tons, was recently approved by the U.S. Department of Energy and will be used to collect “several million gigabytes of data every year,” according to PC World.
The World’s Largest digital camera COMES TO LIFE
To bring the idea to life, the U.S. government is providing the necessary funds for its construction. The National Science Foundation (NSF) will also give monetary aid to create the site facilities and the accompanying database system.
According to Engadget, the camera will be able to photograph patches of the sky 40 times the size of the moon. If that isn’t impressive enough, its advanced technology will also allow the camera to pick up more light than any other optical telescope currently in existence (as it should be able to do since it weighs about as much as a small car); in fact, the camera is so strong that viewing a single photograph from it will require the combined efforts of 1,500 high-definition televisions.
Over the period a decade, it will serve as a useful tool for astronomers looking to gather information about the early universe. According to the DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, the telescope will detect more galaxies than there are people on the Earth. With it, researchers hope to obtain a clearer understanding of how the galaxy was formed and the properties of dark matter or dark energy.
What’s next? THE FUTURE OF THE World’s Largest digital camera
In the meantime, the SLAC will begin to build the camera, as well as a database that will hold the 6 million gigabytes of data gathered by the device per year. The first test runs should begin in 2019 and by 2022, it will start photographing the southern night sky in Chile. Until then, the SLAC has a lot of work cut out for it. As PC World mentions, the construction of the camera will require efforts from various institutions across the globe.
“We now have a busy agenda for the remainder of 2015 and 2016,” stated LSST Director Steven Kahn. “Development of the telescope on the mountain is nicely underway. The contracts for fabrication of the telescope mount and the dome enclosure have been awarded and the distributors are at full steam.”
The World’s Largest digital camera gives us a glance at the inner workings of the universe. Learn more about it with Space Scouts Summer Adventure:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdcU4nKKV2E
World"s Largest Digital Camera Sees The Deep Universe
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