A camera the size of a car to look into the deepest space. SLAC completes construction of the largest digital camera ever built for astronomy

The camera will sit atop Rubin Observatory’s Simonyi Survey Telescope high in the Andes of Chile. (Rubin Observatory/National Science Foundation/AURA)

Once set in place atop a telescope in Chile, the 3,200-megapixel LSST Camera will help researchers better understand dark matter, dark energy and other mysteries of our universe.

Imagine having a very large camera. No, bigger! Very big. As big as a car. And now, with this, what can you see? Before answering, first of all, it is not imagination, but reality!

This camera, the largest in the world, was built especially for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory and from there you can observe the depths of space. Where did they build it? Nothing less then at the SLAC laboratories, from where we start asking a series of questions to various experts.

Firstly, we ask to professor Aaron Roodman, deputy director of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory and of the Department of Particle Physics and Astrophysics and the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology: what is the most technically challenging aspect of building this camera?