Astronomers Set to Build the World’s Largest Space Camera

The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory this week received the approval from the Department of Energy to build the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). The telescope will be equipped with a 3200 mega pixel camera which has the ability to produce the deepest, widest and fastest digital images of the night sky. The camera itself will weigh over 3 tons with its size large enough to be compared to that of a small car.

The groundwork for the $700 million telescope project will start early this spring in Chile's Atacama Desert. The LSST will be nestled across the mountaintops of Cerro Pachon and is said to become operational in 2022. It will have the ability to capture an entire image of the Southern sky every 3 days. The Hubble telescope required 120 years of upgrades to accomplish the same feat once.

The largest space camera will now allow astronomers and scientists to detect billions of objects across the universe and is expected to accumulate over 6 million gigabytes of archival data each year. With the camera, scientists can now track the formation of galaxies, observe asteroids and develop a better understanding of dark energy and dark matter - mysterious forces which constitute about 95 per cent of the universe.

Stanford University physicist and Director of the LSST Project, Dr Steven Kahn said, "There's tremendous opportunity for the public to not only learn about science but participate". He went on to add, "LSST will be a direct connection with the fact that the universe is alive and evolving and constantly changing."

Andrew Connolly, a UW astronomer who is also currently playing a major role in the LSST initiative spoke recently during a TED talks conference where he said, ""This is changing the way we do science. The software is as critical to the science as the telescopes and cameras we build.""