The Us department of defence has a budget allocated for the construction of a camera with up to 3.2 gigapixel. By adopting the construction of the world’s most powerful camera are starting. In 2022 the first images to be shot.
It is going to be the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, which is being built by the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and in Chile will be installed. The corresponding camera of 3.2 gigapixel now has ‘Critical Decision 2’ go through: that means that the Us authorities the proposed budget for the design have been approved. According to the initiators can now the development will be continued and will be the completion date of 2022 to be achieved.
To a resolution of 3.2 gigapixels, there are 189 ccd’s is required, which is the heart of the camera forms. In order to process the images quickly each ccd sensor is divided in 16 datasectoren: each of these sectors has its own uitleeskanaal. The scientists expect about 6 million gigabytes, or 6 petabytes, of data to be produced per year.
For the development of the powerful camera’s many years extended. For instance, in 2011, the first milestone achieved with the completion of CD 1, which means that the development of the camera, the green light was given. The wait is now on the state CD 3, to indicate that the construction has started: this status will be next year summer. Eventually, the telescope with 3.2-gigapixelcamera only in 2022 are ready.
With the camera want scientists to create images of the universe in greater detail than what was previously possible. It should yield information about the shapes of galaxies, observing exploding stars and tracking asteroids. Also want to the scientists more insight into dark matter and dark energy.
