The world’s largest digital camera makes history as the first batch of space photos are released, showing more than 10 million galaxies and nebulae at once
Located at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, the LSST (Large Synoptic Survey Telescope), the largest digital camera in human history, released its first batch of cosmic observation images on June 24. The images were synthesized from more than 1,100 images, starting with spiral galaxies and gradually zooming out, showing more than 10 million galaxies, including the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula, thousands of light-years away from Earth. The images were brightly colored.
The images were taken after 678 exposures and took just over seven hours to complete. British scientists are developing tools to process the huge amount of data collected by the observatory, which is expected to help understand the evolution of galaxies and the mysterious dark matter in the future.
The Vera Rubin Observatory was built with funds from the United States and was named after the American astronomer Rubin, a pioneer in the study of galaxy rotation. The LSST camera is the size of a small car and weighs three tons. It was successfully transported to Chile and installed. It has an ultra-high resolution of 3.2 billion pixels, which is equivalent to the total pixels of 300 mobile phones.
The resolution of the captured images is so high that if it is to be fully displayed, it will require 400 ultra-high-definition television screens spliced together; and once fully activated, it can produce 20TB of data every night. The mission is expected to carry out the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) for 10 years, with the goal of photographing the southern hemisphere sky and creating the most detailed time-lapse image of the universe ever.
