Penn State Joins New Survey to Monitor the Sky
A current rendering of the 8.4-meter LSST which will use a special three-mirror design, creating an exceptionally wide field of view. The LSST will have the ability to survey the visible sky in only three nights. Credit: LSST Corporation
The Penn State Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics has joined an ambitious, long-term project to use a new 330-inch telescope and innovative camera to survey half of the sky. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), which is expected to see first light in 2012, is a collaboration of a number of universities, government laboratories, private individuals, and federal funding agencies.
"The LSST is an unprecedented project, and will address a wide range of important scientific issues, from the nature of 'dark energy' and 'dark matter,' which comprise 96 percent of the universe, to providing a census of asteroids that could pose a threat to life on Earth," said Penn State Professor Niel Brandt. "LSST's potential for scientific discovery is simply staggering."
Staggering is an appropriate word to describe LSST's technology. "The LSST camera is equivalent to all the images that about 1,000 commercial digital cameras can hold, all of which must transferred to a hard drive and imaged in a matter of seconds," noted Professor Lawrence Ramsey, head of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics. "Each night the LSST will obtain 2,000 images and produce a total of 15 trillion data points, so all aspects of the data acquisition and storage present enormous technical challenges."
LSST's camera can obtain an image of the sky that covers 50 times the area of the full moon in a single exposure. "Each region of the sky will be observed many times every year in several different filters, which will allow us to identify some of the most distant objects in the universe as well as to monitor the motions of nearby asteroids," stated Penn State Professor Donald Schneider. "For example, the survey should detect three billion galaxies during the course of its lifetime, plus hundreds of thousands of supernovae each year." Ramsey added, "The breath of LSST science is especially attractive, and more than a dozen Penn State scientists plan to participate in the planning and execution of this survey."
LSST Director J. Anthony Tyson of the University of California-Davis remarked, "Penn State, with its record of participation in several large astronomical projects, brings a wide range of scientific, technical, and administrative skills to the LSST. We are delighted to welcome Penn State as a partner in this challenging endeavor , and look forward to a productive collaboration."
More information about the LSST is on the web at http://www.lsst.org.
CONTACTS
Niel Brandt: nbrandt@astro.psu.edu,(+1) 609-734-8191 / 814-865-3509
Lawrence Ramsey: lramsey@astro.psu.edu,(+1) 814-865-0410
Donald Schneider: dschneider@astro.psu.edu, (+1) 814-863-9554
Barbara Kennedy (PIO), science@psu.edu, (+1) 814-863-4682