Engineers from the United States have completed the assembly of a 3,2-gigapixel camera for the LSST telescope. This camera will be the most powerful in the world and will permit scientists to obtain the clearest and most detailed survey images of the Universe. TASS reports this.
The camera is capable of taking pictures so detailed that you can see a golf ball 25 kilometers away. Moreover, it can cover vast areas of space, several times the diameter of the Moon.
“This camera will permit us to see billions of stars and galaxies and unlock the secrets of the Universe”, - says Professor Aaron Rudman of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
The developed camera is a gigantic device. It weighs about 3 tons and is comparable in size to a passenger car. The diameter of its front lens is a record 1,5 meters, and its sensor consists of 201 CCD arrays.
This camera took over 20 years to create. Scientists expect it to operate for at least 10 years once installed on the LSST telescope.
The data obtained with this camera will help scientists:
- study the nature of dark matter and dark energy
- observe how galaxies bend light
- compile a more complete catalog of asteroids in the Solar System
The LSST telescope on which the camera will be installed is the largest ground-based survey telescope. It has a record-breaking field of view, which will permit it to take pictures of huge areas of the sky.
Construction of the LSST telescope began in 2015 and is expected to be completed by 2025.
