TECHNOLOGY FOR CHANGE

Photographing the Invisible

Dave Greenfield | Date: 02-15-10 | Comments

The world's largest digital camera has been created to photograph something nobody can see and scientists aren't even sure exists.

A new digital camera is being engineered at Fermilab, near Chicago, but this is one camera you don�t want to carry in your pocket. In your Mini Cooper, maybe. A team of particle physicists and astronomers is working on the 570-megapixel camera with the aim of shooting a mysterious subject: dark energy.

This mammoth camera has 74 CCD censors and costs $35 million to complete. The core, which resembles a giant telescope, will fit inside an enclosure that is, of course, the size of a Mini Cooper. It will be mounted to a telescope in Chile where it will map more than 300 million galaxies, offering an unprecedented and intriguing look into the cosmos.

So, what are researchers hoping to see?

Dark energy. It is elusive, and scientists can�t even prove that it exists because it is invisible. But it is conjectured that since the Big Bang, the universe has steadily expanded. When confronted with the force of gravity, the expansion accelerates instead of slows, and astronomers believe that dark energy is the force that is causing this contrary reaction. They hope to use the detailed images generated by the 570-mp beast to demonstrate how the cosmos is growing, and give them some insight into the effect of dark energy.

The Dark Energy Camera, as it is known, is going to capture an invisible subject by looking into supernovas and galaxies to get a glimpse of the cosmos as seen a few billion years ago. Says Craig Hogan, Fermilab�s director for the Center of Particle Astrophysics, �It�s throwing the tools of the digital age onto the old question of where we are.� And the answers may be surprising. Some experts even believe that the data from the Dark Energy Camera will provide evidence that challenges Einstein�s theory of relativity.

The massive camera is expected to go live in 2011 and begin shedding light on dark energy.