3.2 gigapixels

US researchers build the world’s largest digital camera

The camera's largest lens has a diameter of 1.60 meters.(Bild: slac.stanford.edu)

Scientists in the USA claim to have built the world's largest digital camera. The camera, which the team worked on for several years in a laboratory in the US state of California, is about the size of a small car and weighs three tons, the National Accelerator Laboratory in Palo Alto announced on Wednesday. The construct is intended for use in astronomy.

The camera has a total of 189 sensors and 3.2 gigapixels - and could therefore, according to the researchers, capture a golf ball from a distance of 24 kilometers. The camera's largest lens has a diameter of almost 1.60 meters. 

The camera's sensors should be able to record a golf ball from a distance of 24 kilometers.(Bild: Jacqueline Orrell/slac.stanford.edu)

Once completed, the product, which costs around 168 million dollars (approximately 155 million euros), will be installed in an observatory in the Chilean Andes. The camera will then spend a decade imaging the southern sky and collecting data.

The construction of the 168 million dollar camera in detail(Bild: slac.stanford.edu)

"Soon we will produce the best movie and the most informative map of the night sky ever," said the observatory's director, Željko Ivezić.