Pictures help us make sense of the world around us. From cave paintings, doodles and diagrams, to maps, sketches and photographs, as our tools for depicting the world have improved, so too has our understanding of it. And the device you see on these pages might be the most advanced picturing tool yet. It’s the focal plane of the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) Camera, and is the biggest and most sophisticated piece of photography equipment on – or off – the planet. It’s being developed at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California for one of the most ambitious astronomy surveys ever undertaken.
“It’s going to be a 10-year survey,” says Prof Aaron Roodman, the scientist in charge of the camera’s assembly. “We’re going to take images of every part of the southern hemisphere sky that’s visible from a mountaintop in Chile. And we’re doing that to enable a whole host of science projects.”
The LSST Camera won’t just be obtaining a handful of images, though. It’ll be taking around 1,000 every night. And the images will be big. The LSST Camera’s focal plane is 64 x 64cm, giving each image a 9.6 square degrees field of view – enough to contain 40 full moons. Each of the image sensors in the LSST Camera is 40 x 40mm and 189 of them have been tiled together to create the focal plane. To put that in perspective, a typical DSLR camera uses a single 36 x 24mm image sensor.
Denne historien er fra December 2020-utgaven av BBC Focus - Science & Technology.
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Denne historien er fra December 2020-utgaven av BBC Focus - Science & Technology.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Do We Finally Know How the Egyptian Pyramids Were Built? - A number of breakthrough studies are beginning to paint a picture of how these wonders of the world were built, but much of the story still remains a mystery...
A number of breakthrough studies are beginning to paint a picture of how these wonders of the world were built, but much of the story still remains a mystery...How the Egyptian pyramids were built has long been a mystery. Constructed as tombs for the pharaohs over 4,000 years ago, more than 100 of them remain. The largest one, the Great Pyramid of Giza, was originally 147m tall (482ft). It's made up of about 2.3 million stone blocks, each weighing between 2.5 and 15 tonnes, and would have had to be transported to the building site and lifted into place with techniques available at the time. To put this into context, it's akin to lifting a double-decker London bus to the top of St Pauls Cathedral a few million times.
An Artificial Heart Inspired by Plumbing - Mechanical circulation could revolutionise transplant design and reduce waiting lists
Mechanical circulation could revolutionise transplant design and reduce waiting lists. In July, this artificial heart was successfully implanted, for the first time, into a patient with end-stage heart failure. Built by The Texas Heart Institute (THI) and BiVACOR, the replacement organ has been dubbed the Total Artificial Heart (TAH). Although, being an implant rather than transplant, it's designed to temporarily support patients while they wait for a real heart transplant.
CHANGE THE (BODY) CLOCKS
Why the end of British Summer Time can be a wake-up call for our circadian health
ARE OCTOPUSES SENTIENT?
If you've watched the Netflix documentary My Octopus Teacher or been lucky enough to encounter an octopus in the wild, you'll know there's something special about them.
THE MEXICAN MOLE LIZARD
Imagine what would happen if an earthworm, a lizard, a snake and a mole went on a night out, had too much too much tequila and let their guard down.
ECLIPSES ON DEMAND
Inside an unassuming building, behind a damp car park in Antwerp, Belgium, scientists are teaching two spacecraft to be dance partners for a performance that will take place in front of the Sun.
How light's 'secret code' reveals the story of the cosmos
The starlight we can see tells us alot about the Universe, but it's the parts we can't see that contain the biggest revelations
Major Stonehenge discovery deepens mystery around ancient monument
New findings suggest a key six-tonne stone came from over 450 miles north of the circle
THE UNEXPECTED RETURN OF PNEUMATIC TUBES
Once a pioneering technology that revolutionised deliveries, pneumatic tubes had all but disappeared. Now they're back and enjoying a resurgence
LIVING FOSSILS
FOR SOME CREATURES ALIVE TODAY TIME HAS ALMOST STOOD STILL. MEET THE 'LIVING FOSSILS' THAT GIVE US A GLIMPSE INTO LIFE IN THE DISTANT PAST
