WUS scientists claim to have built the world's largest digital camera. The camera, which the team worked on for several years at a California state lab, is about the size of a small car and weighs three tons, the National Accelerator Laboratory in Palo Alto announced Wednesday.
The diameter of the camera's largest lens is nearly 1.60 meters. In total, the camera has 189 sensors and 3.2 gigapixels – and according to the researchers, it could therefore capture a golf ball from a distance of 24 kilometers.
Costing around $168 million (around €155 million), the product will be installed at an observatory in the Chilean Andes once completed. The camera then photographs the southern sky and collects data over ten years.
“Soon we will produce the best film ever and the most informative map of the night sky,” said Željko Ivezić, director of the observatory.