Beginning in 2019, the LSST Camera will embark on a 10-year mission to image the entire sky, contributing to our understanding of the cosmos and its most pressing concerns.
The world’s largest digital camera is nearing completion in Northern California, thanks to the efforts of scientists there. They kindly removed the lens cap and let CNET have a peak inside just lately.
The LSST camera, short for Legacy Survey of Space and Time, has been developed by engineers at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory for the past seven years. The camera is the size of a compact car, weighs almost three tons, and features a lens that is five feet broad, making it the largest in the world. Check out the video below to see footage from our time inside the clean room.
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, located in the Chilean Andes, will soon have a new telescope equipped with a 3,200 megapixel camera, capable of detecting a golf ball from 15 miles away. This telescope will spend the next decade charting the whole southern sky. Researchers believe the LSST camera will enable them to find 6 million new objects in our solar system and 17 billion new stars.
The LSST camera will take a significantly larger view of the universe than the recently launched James Webb telescope. Once operational, it will take an image of the sky every 15 seconds, eventually forming a complete panorama of the night sky. All throughout the world, scientists are getting all giddy over those pictures. According to Travis Lange, the camera’s senior mechanical engineer, “when we see a new phenomenon, within 60 seconds of the shutter closing, we are going to be able to send warnings to everyone who is inquisitive.”
Once the LSST project is complete in 10 years, the camera will have captured a 3D movie of the whole southern sky. “(It) will enable us to view things on timescales that haven’t been accessible previously,” said Risa Wechsler, a professor of physics at Stanford.
“Our ability to ponder profound issues is much enhanced. What exactly does space consist of, anyway? What exactly are dark matter and dark energy?”
Over the next three months, SLAC scientists will complete the camera’s final testing. It will be prepared for shipment to Santiago, Chile on a chartered Boeing 747 in May of 2023. After that, it will be loaded onto a train and taken to the Cerro Pachón observatory.
