The American Large Synoptic Survey Telescope Corporation has just boasted about the amazing capabilities of its new telescope, Vera C. Rubin Observatory.
It will be equipped with the most advanced camera ever, capable of taking pictures with record resolution.
We are talking here about 3200 megapixels.
The device can easily take a picture of a golf ball from a distance of 25 kilometers. Engineers from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, where the first tests of the camera were carried out, report that the focal plane of the camera is 60 centimeters wide and consists of 189 CCD sensors with a resolution of 16 megapixels each.
The sensors were connected together in groups of 9 and placed in 21 modules.
The kit includes 4 more modules that are used to calibrate the camera.
The entire observation system weighs 3 tons and the camera has amazing parameters.
In addition to being able to take pictures of small objects at great distances, it can also capture images 100 million times darker than what the human eye can see under the worst lighting conditions.
Scientists want to use these benefits to detect new galaxies. LSST estimates that with the help of the Vera Rubin Observatory, as many as 30 billion galaxies will be imaged within the next 10 years of operation of the device.
Thanks to this, astronomers will be able to complete their map of the universe and trace its evolutionary history even more precisely than before. It is worth emphasizing here that it is a device that will make observations from the surface of our planet.
The observatory is being built in Chile and will be a role model in the study of the limits of the visible universe.
The device is to start operating next year.
Then we can expect the publication of the first record-breaking images from this amazing camera.