The Digital Press

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory has unveiled the largest digital camera ever built, a 3.2-billion-pixel device designed to capture detailed images of billions of galaxies to study dark matter and dark energy. Tony Tyson, the chief scientist behind the project, has spent decades developing CCD technology to explore the universe’s most mysterious components.

Why it matters: The Rubin Observatory’s camera will map dark matter and track dark energy’s effects over cosmic time, addressing 95% of the universe’s unknown content.

The big picture: Over 10 years, the observatory will photograph about 20 billion galaxies, enabling unprecedented insights into cosmic structure and expansion history.

Stunning stat: The camera consists of 189 CCD sensors totaling 3.2 billion pixels and will detect up to 10 million nightly changes in the sky.

Commenters say: Readers admire the technological achievement and its potential to revolutionize cosmology, while expressing excitement about future discoveries on dark energy and dark matter.