Science teams in Northern California are putting the finishing touches on the world’s largest digital camera. Engineers at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have been building the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) camera for the past seven years.
The camera is the size of a small car, weighs about three tons, and the lens is five feet wide, a size that has set a Guinness World Record. Watch the embedded video to see our visit with the camera in a clean room.
With a resolution of 3.2 billion pixels, the camera is sharp enough to clearly capture a golf ball 15 miles away. When completed, it will be the centerpiece of a new telescope at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in the mountains of Chile that will map the entire southern sky over the next decade. Scientists predict that the LSST camera will help them discover 17 billion new stars, as well as 6 million new objects in our solar system.
While the recently launched James Webb Telescope provides a deep and narrow view of space, the LSST camera will provide an even broader view. Once operational, it will capture seven times the width of the full moon every 15 seconds, creating a complete panorama of the sky each night.
Scientists around the world are fantasizing about all these images, says Travis Lange, chief mechanical engineer for the LSST camera. “When we see a new phenomenon within 60 seconds of the shutter closing, we will be able to send an alert to anyone who is curious.”
Once the 10-year project is complete, the LSST camera will create a 3D movie of the entire southern sky. (It) will allow us to see things on time scales that were previously inaccessible,” said Risa Wechsler, a professor of physics at Stanford University. It allows us to ask very big questions. What is the universe made of? What is the nature of dark matter and dark energy?”
SLAC scientists will be conducting final tests of the camera in the next few months. They plan to pack it up and place it on a chartered Boeing 747 in May 2023 for a flight to Santiago, Chile. It will then be placed on a train to reach the observatory at the top of Cerro Pachón.
