The Biggest Camera on Earth

Published by Wayward on May 21st, 2009

biggest camera

Most people in the know about cameras realise that megapixels aren’t the most important thing about a camera, but they do increase the resolution, which is important to many. With mobiles boasting beyond 5 million megapixels and the average digital camera now either retailing with 10 or 12 million, you’d be forgiven for thinking our home camera tech is pretty advance.

Compare it then to the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) which will be scanning the sky equipped with a 1.4 Gigapixel focal plane in an eight by eight array of eight by eight cells. Yeah, it’s a pretty big camera.

It does have a purpose though, mostly scanning for near earth objects and asteroids that could potentially hit the earth. Considering even a relatively tiny asteroid could do the same damage as a large nuclear explosion, watching out for them is probably a very good idea.

The system will be built in Hawaii and will cost.. well, a lot of money, but it’ll be worth it if it can spot an asteroid capable of killing everybody on the planet, providing we can then think of a way to actually deal with it.

Meanwhile you can take a look at an impressive 17 Gigapixel image here.

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