- Eurozone inflation falls under 2% for first time since 2021
- Coldplay ticket scalping fiasco sparks backlash in India
- Droughts drive Spanish boom in pistachio farming
- Tokyo recovers some losses to lead Asian markets higher
- Rural schools empty in North Macedonia due to exodus
- US dockworkers launch strike after labor contract expires
- Thousands evacuated as Super Typhoon Krathon approaches Taiwan
- Kenya airport whistleblower fears for his life
- Sheinbaum to take office as Mexico's first woman president
- Scientists fear underfunded Argentina research on verge of collapse
- US port officials gird for strike despite last-minute bargaining
- With 118 dead from Hurricane Helene, Biden defends US government response
- Breeder who tried to create enormous trophy sheep jailed in US
- Qatar Airways seeking 25% stake in Virgin Australia
- US port officials gird for strike as labor talks stay stuck
- As toll crosses 100, Trump puts Hurricane Helene at election center stage
- US Fed Chair sees 'further disinflation' in economy
- Epic Games sues Google and Samsung over app store
- Officials see no shortages from likely US port strike
- UK families of Gaza hostages warn Lebanon attack 'takes focus away'
- Shares in Stellantis, Aston Martin skid on profit warnings
- Dali prints found in London garage sold at auction
- ECB chief backs bank mergers amid UniCredit, Commerzbank talk
- China stocks soar on stimulus, but US and Europe retreat
- 100 dead in storm Helene damage, flooding across US southeast
- China stocks soar on stimulus, Europe slides on automaker woes
- German antitrust watchdog steps up monitoring of Microsoft
- Nepal's urban poor count cost of 'nightmare' floods
- E.Guinea, Gabon clash at ICJ over oil-rich islands
- New blow for UK's Starmer as growth data disappoints
- China's top banks to tweak mortgage rates to boost housing market
- Muslim women break taboos navigating east London's waterways
- Nepal dam-building spree powers electric vehicle boom
- More than 60 dead from storm Helene as rescue, cleanup efforts grow
- Dozens missing, 9 dead in migrant boat wreck off Spanish Canaries
- Death toll from Hurricane John hits eight in Mexico
- Storm Helene's toll rises as rescue and cleanup efforts gain pace
- SpaceX launches mission to return stranded astronauts
- Storm Helene kills 44, threatens more 'catastrophic' flooding as cleanup begins
- SpaceX set to launch mission to return stranded astronauts
- Storm Helene kills 44, threatens more 'catastrophic' flooding
- Boeing strike grinds on as latest talks fail to reach agreement
- Iran 'news' sites, hackers target Trump ahead of US election
- US ports brace for potential dockworkers strike
- Japan's speedy, spotless Shinkansen bullet trains turn 60
- US hurricane deaths rise to 44, fears of more 'catastrophic' flooding
- Global stocks mostly rise, cheering Beijing stimulus
- Europe en route for Moon with new simulator, says astronaut Pesquet
- Fireworks forecast if comet survives risky Sun flypast
- Argentina judge orders dictionary to delete pejorative definition of 'Jewish'
Astronomers in Chile to scour universe with car-sized mega camera
Surrounded by the desert mountains and clear blue sky of northern Chile, astronomers from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory hope to revolutionize the study of the universe by affixing the world's largest-ever digital camera to a telescope.
The size of a small car and weighing 2.8 metric tons, the sophisticated piece of equipment will reveal views of the cosmos as never before, officials from the US-funded project told AFP.
Beginning in early 2025, when the $800 million camera will snap its first photos, the machine will sweep the sky every three days, allowing scientists to reach new heights in their galactic analyses.
Researchers will be able to go from "studying one star and knowing everything in-depth about that one star, to studying thousands of stars at a time," said Bruno Dias, president of the Chilean Society of Astronomy (Sochias).
According to Stuartt Corder, deputy director of NOIRLab, the US research center running the observatory located 2,500 meters (8,200 feet) up the Cerro Pachon mountain, 560 kilometers (350 miles) north of Santiago, the new facility will usher in "a paradigm shift in astronomy."
The project solidifies Chile's dominant position in astronomical observation, as the South American country is home to a third of the globe's most powerful telescopes, according to Sochias, and boasts among the clearest skies on the planet.
The Rubin Observatory camera's first task will be to complete a 10-year review of the sky, called the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), which researchers hope will reveal information about 20 million galaxies, 17 billion stars and six million space objects.
The survey will give scientists an up-to-date inventory of images of the solar system, allow them to map our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and delve deeper into the study of energy and dark matter.
- 300 TVs for one picture -
The new camera will be able to capture 3,200-megapixel photos -- resulting in images so large they would require more than 300 average-size high-definition televisions, lined up together, to view just one.
The machine, built in California, will have triple the capacity of the world's current most powerful camera, the 870-megapixel Hyper Suprime-Cam in Japan, and will have six times the capacity of NOIRLab's most powerful camera.
The lab's existing top camera, on Chile's Cerro Tololo mountain, is only 520 megapixels, according to Jacques Sebag, head of construction of the Rubin telescope.
Chile's telescopes have come a long way since the 40-centimeter Cerro Tololo telescope, at the country's first international observatory, installed in the 1960s.
"That telescope arrived here on the back of a mule, because there was no road," said Stephen Heathcote, director of the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, only 20 kilometers from Cerro Pachon.
- Astronomy capital of the world -
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, named in honor of the US astronomer who discovered dark matter, will join several other space observation research centers in northern Chile.
The natural conditions of the region's desert landscape -- tucked between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes mountain range -- creates the clearest skies on the planet, thanks to a dry climate with little cloud cover.
The area plays host to telescopes from more than 30 countries, including some of the most powerful astronomical instruments in the world, such as the radio telescope at the ALMA Observatory and the under-construction Extremely Large Telescope, which by 2027 is set to be able to view never-before-seen reaches of the universe.
Many of humanity's most important astronomical discoveries have been made at the Cerro Tololo observatory, such as the 2011 Nobel Prize-winning revelation that expansion of the universe is picking up speed, a phenomenon known as cosmic acceleration.
Though other influential observatories have been opened around the globe, including in the United States, Australia, China and Spain, "Chile is unbeatable" in the world of astronomy, said Dias, the Sochias president.
A.Levy--CPN