Queen's Uni Astronomers To Search For Exploding Stars Using World's Largest Digital Camera

Queen's University astronomers are to search for exploding stars, comets and potentially hazardous asteroids using the world’s largest digital camera.

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) is currently being built in the Chilean Andes. The 3.2 billion pixels telescope will be used by an international team of astronomers to take images of the sky that each cover over 40 times the area of the moon, building up a survey of the entire visible sky in just three nights.

Billions of galaxies, stars and solar system objects will be seen for the first time and monitored over ten years in what will be the first motion picture of our Universe.

The Science and Technology Facilities Council confirmed that Queen’' Astrophysics Research Centre will play a leading role in the UK's participation in the LSST project.

Professor Stephen Smartt, Director of Queen’s Astrophysics Research Centre, said: "Experts from Queen's will lead the UK effort to find distant supernovae – exploding death stars – which hold the key to understanding the origin of the chemical elements of the periodic table and the size and geometry of the Universe.

"We will also lead the search for asteroids and comets, including potentially hazardous asteroids that may pose a threat to Earth. We will also use LSST to search for new and distant planets that lie beyond Pluto, over 4 billion kilometres away from Earth.

"Queen’s has received significant funding from the Science and Technologies Facilities Council for this project, which is testament to our world-class research capabilities in this area."

(CD)