An artistic rendering of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. Image: LSST Project |
A 3.2 billion-pixel digital camera designed
by SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is now one step closer to reality. The
Large Synoptic Survey Telescope camera, which will capture the widest, fastest,
and deepest view of the night sky ever observed, has received “Critical
Decision 1” approval by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to move into the
next stage of the project.
The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST)
will survey the entire visible sky every week, creating an unprecedented public
archive of data—about 6 million gigabytes per year, the equivalent of shooting
roughly 800,000 images with a regular eight-megapixel digital camera every
night, but of much higher quality and scientific value. Its deep and frequent
cosmic vistas will help answer critical questions about the nature of dark
energy and dark matter and aid studies of near-Earth asteroids, Kuiper belt
objects, the structure of our galaxy, and many other areas of astronomy and
fundamental physics.
“With 189 sensors and over 3 tons of components
that have to be packed into an extremely tight space, you can imagine this is a
very complex instrument,” said Nadine Kurita, the project manager for the LSST
camera at SLAC. “But given the enormous challenges required to provide such a
comprehensive view of the universe, it’s been an incredible opportunity to
design something so unique.”
Now that the LSST camera has passed
Critical Decision 1, the project begins a detailed engineering design,
schedule, and budget phase. While the DOE funds the design and construction of
the camera, the full cost and logistics of the new telescope are being shared
by the DOE and the National Science Foundation, as well as a large partnership
of public and private organizations in the United States and abroad.
“This is the culmination of years of work
by a large group of dedicated people,” said SLAC’s Steven Kahn, LSST deputy
project director and leader of the DOE-funded effort on LSST. “I’ve personally
been working on this since 2003, and it is tremendously satisfying to finally
see this move forward to the point when we can begin to carry out the project.”
If all continues as planned, construction
on the telescope will begin in 2014. Preliminary work has already started on
LSST’s 8.4-m primary mirror and its final site atop Cerro Pachón in northern Chile.
As the primary component of all energy in
the universe, the still-mysterious dark energy is perhaps the most important
research target for LSST and the physicists who are building it. Yet that’s
only a start. LSST’s fire hose of publicly available data will allow
astronomers the world over to view faint and rapidly changing objects, create
3D maps and time lapses of the night sky, and detail Pluto’s celestial
neighborhood, the Kuiper belt.
“Not
only should LSST revolutionize our understanding of the universe, its contents
and the laws that govern its behavior, but it will also transform the way all
of us, from kindergarteners to professional astrophysicists, use telescopes,”
said Tony Tyson, LSST director and a professor of physics at the University of
California, Davis. “These are exciting times!”
