LSST is a great astronomy project. The U.S. giant, Internet Google, which has already caused huge sensation with its three-dimensional maps, now has added a project to digitally film the entire area visible from the Earth through a telescope installed in Chile, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST)
The project, which brings together 19 universities and laboratories, plans to build a telescope on Cerro Pachon, in the Forth Region, which (its implementation is scheduled for 2013) will be able to view, weekly, the entire space visible from the Earth using a digital camera of 3000 million pixels.
With the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), the experts will be able to "verify the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy, and with this, open a window, as in a movie, for changing and fast-moving objects," explained the ones responsible of the project.
We will also be able to expore Supernovae, and detect asteroids that are dangerously approaching the Earth. "At present, we do not really have any way of detecting them before they become obvious," said Suzanne Hawley at the time, from the Astronomy Department of the University of Washington in a media conference, referring to the project.
Images that will be captured from the Cerro Pachón will be "the greatest movie of all time," said astronomer Craig Hogan, also from the Washington University and one of the leading scientists working on the project. " It will transform the way we do science.", said Hogan to the Seattle Post.
At a press release which announced the entry of the Internet's giant to the enterprise, it was ensured that this public-private entity, run by the LSST and Google, share many common goals, like the massive organization of information and making it useful, analizing the continuous stream of data, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, effectively and making it available to the public and researchers in reasonable time.
According to the LSST, the telescope will generate more than 30,000 gigabytes of images every night. "It will be the YouTube of astronomy," said Hogan, comparing with the popular Internet site where people show video images to the entire world.
