Car-sized camera to capture first survey of the night sky since the 1950s

After nearly two decades of work, scientists at Stanford and engineers from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory completed the largest digital camera ever built. Now the tool is getting ready to conduct an important astro-survey.

The camera, which weighs nearly 3 metric tons, has been dubbed the world’s largest digital camera, will conduct the first survey of the night sky since the 1950s.

Aaron Roodman, a Professor of particle physics and astrophysics at SLAC's National Accelerator Laboratory , led the effort of putting the camera together and he shared with Audacy that the survey it will conduct will be massive for astronomers.

The survey will include taking pictures of  “every part of the night sky” in the Southern Hemisphere, Roodman shared.

The camera will be put to use in South America, as Roodman shared that Chile offers one of the “best spots on Earth for optical astronomy.”

“The reason is it’s high desert. So, if you're wanting to take pictures of the heavens, you don't want any clouds, you don't want it to rain, you'd like to be high up,” he said.

“Because we’re going to be seeing literally billions of galaxies, billions of stars in our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and millions of solar system objects. We’re going to learn an enormous amount,” Roodman said. “I can tell you best what I’m personally interested in. And, I’m interested in studying the expansion of the universe. And this thing we call dark energy.”

Roodman says that dark energy is what scientists believe is responsible for the rapid expansion of the universe.

He says that since they don’t know a ton of what dark energy is, he’s hoping that the camera will help shed some light on one of astronomy’s most famous unanswered questions.

As for the camera, the tech has 3,200-megapixels, meaning it is almost 267 times more powerful than the average iPhone which has 12-megapixels.

Another example of the sheer size of the camera is in the size of its images. To view a full size image from the camera, you would need hundreds of full size high-resolution televisions.

According to estimates from the Rubin Observatory in Chile, the final resting place for the camera, the project could increase the number of known objects in the universe by tenfold.