Chile unveils telescope with world’s largest digital camera
The world’s largest telescope for wide-field sky surveys has begun operations in Chile, situated in the mountains of the Coquimbo region. Over the next ten years, it will regularly photograph the southern sky, TV BRICS reports.
According to Diario Usach, every night, the system will process around 10 TB of data and detect millions of transient phenomena in space – from moving asteroids to sudden flashes from distant objects.
During test observations, scientists have discovered thousands of previously unknown asteroids, including objects approaching Earth, as well as bodies on the outskirts of the solar system.
According to astronomers, the new system will revolutionise the approach to space exploration. Unlike traditional telescopes, which study individual objects in detail, this instrument is designed to continuously scan vast swathes of the sky.
This method will make it possible to detect any changes: variable stars, supernova explosions, new comets, small asteroids, distant objects beyond Neptune’s orbit and even previously unknown cosmic phenomena.
One of the key areas of research will be the study of dark matter – a form of matter that does not emit light but manifests itself through its gravitational effects.
Astronomers plan to investigate how dark matter affects the propagation of light from distant galaxies. These slight distortions, known as gravitational lensing, will help to create a detailed map of the distribution of matter in the Universe and test existing models of its evolution.
Earlier, it was reported that China's giant radio telescope observations had unraveled the origin of cosmic enigmatic flashes.
