Engineers and scientists at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, in collaboration with other organizations, have developed the 3200-megapixel Space and Time Probe Survey (LSST) camera.
Offering unparalleled details of the southern night sky, this innovative camera could revolutionize our knowledge of the universe as a whole.
Over ten years, he collected a significant amount of data, giving researchers a wealth of information to investigate.
The secret of dark matter, the mysterious element that makes up most of the universe, and the dark energy that causes the rapid expansion of the universe, will finally be revealed thanks to this information.
With Rubin’s data, scientists hope to learn more about the dynamics of our Solar System, the Milky Way galaxy, and the night sky. This will give new insights into the universe. Professor Jeljko Ivezic, Director of the Rubin Observatory Building and the University of Washington.
About the size of a small car and weighing more than 3,000 kg (more than 3 metric tons), this giant camera has a front lens with a diameter of more than five meters.
The three-meter-wide special lens is carefully made to maintain the optical integrity and seal the vacuum chamber, which includes the camera’s large focal plane.
Made up of 201 specially designed KCD sensors, this field of focus is incredibly smooth, with variations no greater than a tenth of the width of a human hair.
The pixels themselves are only 10 microns, reflecting the precision and technological power used to make this cutting tool.
Once the camera is up and running, its primary goal is to map the location and brightness of the various celestial bodies scattered across the night sky.
In particular, the LSST Camera will actively search for faint signs of weak gravitational lensing, where the gravitational pull of giant galaxies slightly deflects the direction of light from background galaxies as they approach Earth.
This phenomenon helps cosmologists understand the mysterious dark energy that drives the expansion of the universe, providing important information about the distribution of mass in the universe and how it changes over time.
By identifying clumps of dark matter and discovering unusual stars, scientists want to learn how the distribution of galaxies has changed over time. This project is important for expanding our knowledge of dark energy and dark matter.
