The world’s largest camera, which will weigh more than 3 tonnes and will be as large as a small car, will pack a whopping 32,000 mega-pixel sensor. The camera is not yet been manufactured, but the funding has been secured for its construction.
A report on Wired stated that the camera will be the world’s most powerful digital camera and will be deployed to capture high-resolution images and videos of the cosmos. It will also be used to unravel mysteries in space.
The LSST camera, or Large Synoptic Survey Telescope camera, will be constructed at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, and operations are set to begin in 2022. The main goal of the LSST is to capture digital images of the entire visible southern sky from atop Cerro Pachon Mountain in Chile.
The camera will have a 10-year life span, and during this period, it will be used to capture images of the deepest and wildest views in space. The camera is expected to generate a whopping six million gigabytes of data each year. Researchers are hoping to use the camera to gain more information of the galaxies and also track potentially dangerous asteroids and other approaching dangerous objects. Researchers also hope to tap the mysteries of the dark matter and dark energy, which makes up almost 95 per cent of the universe.
Images: Rendered images of the camera and the site at Chile. Credit: LSST
