ESA's 'Billion-Pixel Array' is the Biggest Digital Camera Ever Built for Space

 

Gaia's Eyes Gaia will carry 106 charge coupled devices (CCDs), advanced versions of chips within standard digital cameras. Here technicians assemble them on their support structure.Astrium

 

The biggest, most sensitive digital camera ever constructed for a space mission has been built by the European Space Agency, and it makes your Leica look pretty lame by comparison. The Galaxy-mapping Gaia mission’s “billion-pixel array” has been cobbled together from 106 charge coupled devices (CCDs), and the result is some super high-resolution capability. When Gaia opens its eyes in 2013, it will be able to spot stars a million times fainter than the ones humans can see on the clearest night.

In case you were curious, the naked human eye can see several thousand stars on a nice clear night--roughly 2,500 are visible at any given time from any given place on Earth, clouds and light pollution notwithstanding. Gaia aims to map a full billion stars just within our own Milky Way galaxy (nevermind the distant quasars and intergalactic light it will also log). ...

By Clay Dillow
Posted 07.06.2011 at 10:51 am

[ESA]

Read more  http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-07/esas-billion-pixel-array-biggest-digital-camera-ever-built-space