According to physicist organization network reported that the total investment of $ 700 million telescope will begin construction in the Atacama desert hilltop in this spring. The telescope project scientist, astronomer Zeljko University of Washington, said: “We hope to get the first dynasty in 2019 of first-hand data.”
Most telescopes only takes a snapshot of a narrow space, and LSST can continue to scan large areas of the sky, so astronomers to describe it as the world’s most powerful “sky plotter.”
The telescope will be generated every three days the entire southern sky images, the Hubble Space Telescope can finish it take 120 years to do the job. The result is equivalent to time-lapse photography, allowing astronomers to track the movement of objects and hundreds of millions of galaxies collide and watch the birth and death of stars. Zeljko said: “This will be the greatest movie of color.”
Project Director LSST, Stanford University physicist Stephen Kahn said: “This telescope is able to detect faint objects, peep distant depths of the universe, its purpose is designed to solve some of the biggest challenges of astronomy.”
In practice, the telescope can focus than other detection means more asteroids, it can provide a warning of objects colliding with the Earth, beyond the orbit of Neptune will detect clues to more distant planets and the solar system formed search. Kahn’s most exciting is that they have a chance to solve the basic mysteries of the universe, such as the nature of the so-called dark energy.
Kahn said: “We really do not know what that is and LSST will provide a powerful big data for this problem is based on initial observations of supernova 42, collected by the Hubble Space Telescope to observe the three-year data .LSST expected. can detect supernovae 250,000 per year. ”
By analyzing these signals, scientists will be able to test various theories to explain the acceleration, which may be able to determine who is the winner. Zeljko said: “It is possible to get a Nobel Prize in the field.”
The telescope project is co-funded by the US National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy. It is possible to begin to share all data and images with the public in 2021, anyone with a computer can see.
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