Dear Hivians,
it´s development took 2 decades, now it is complete. The LSST-camera (Legacy Survey of Space and Time) has an optics with a diameter of 1,6m and will be part of the newly built Vera C. Rubin observatory in Chile.
source
This 3200(!) megapixel camera is the largest ever built. It has a weight of 2800kg and consists of 200 individual sensors with 16 megapixel each. You would need 1200 iPhone screens to view a single pic at full size! It is so sensitive, it can spot a candle 1000s of kms away and a golfball from 24km distance. It will operate at a temperature of about -100°C to minimize noise.
Once shipped from Stanford (it was built at SLAC in California) to Chile and mounted inside the telescope, for the next 10 years it will make every 30 seconds a picture of the Southern Hemisphere (with a shutter speed of 15s) and thus generate 15 terabyte of data - each night!
But why such an effort?
Because the way how the universe is structured, has become less and less clear over time. Currently scientists believe that only 5% of the universe is built from normal matter, the rest is made out of "dark" matter and "dark energy" - theoretical constructs to explain the differences between the models and the actual measurements of the observed reality. In order to narrow down the gaps in our understanding, they try to map out the large-scale structures of our universe and as they change over time! Like a huge, 10 years long time-lapse video of the universe, hence the name "legacy survey of space and time".
I really hope the astronomers will find new clues from this space and time survey. I don´t like the idea that we know so little about our universe. Maybe they will even find new arguments for the simulation hypothesis, a very speculative theory that we are not real but a simulation run by mighty computers from another civilization (or even our descendants).
Sources:
https://rubinobservatory.org/news/rubins-lsst-camera-is-complete
https://futurezone.at/science/groesste-digitalkamera-aller-zeiten-aufloesung-pixel-optik-lsst-himmelsbeobachtung-zeitraffer/402843946
https://www.lsst.org/about/camera