The world's most powerful digital camera hunts for dark energy

Over the next five years, the world's most powerful digital camera will photograph night sky to help international scientists decipher the universe's greatest mysteries.

>>> Camera "hunting" dark energy

On the Phys.org page, the Dark Energy Survey project has officially begun with the Victor M. Blanco telescope, located at the Cerro Tololo American Astronomical Observatory in Chile. The Dark Energy Survey will map one-eighth of the sky's area to find out why the universe is expanding and deciphering the mystery of dark energy.

The 570-megapixel camera Dark Energy Camera - (Image: Standord.edu)

This is a 10-year preparation project, which was conducted by 25 scientific organizations in six countries around the world. The most distinctive feature of this project is the Dark Energy Camera, a 570 megapixel digital camera, located on the Victor M. Blanco telescope.

This is the world's most powerful camera with the ability to collect light from more than 100,000 galaxies 8 billion light-years from Earth. All data collected will be processed at the University of Illinois at-large Microprocessor Application Center. Then they will be transferred to scientists around the world to study.

Over the next five years, the Dark Energy Survey will capture 300 million galaxies and 100,000 galaxy clusters. The scientists aim to discover 4,000 stellar explosions in the early universe.

The Dark Energy Survey receives financial support from the US Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation and from organizations in England, Spain, Brazil, Germany and Switzerland. prestigious schools are also involved in this project.