The world's largest digital camera investigates the dark matter of the universe

Located at the top of one of the highest mountains in Chile, it is capable of collecting spots six times larger than the full moon, in individual exposures.

The largest digital camera in the world, with an incredible 570 megapixels, the DECAM opens its interior to show how it works.

Located on top of one of the highest mountains in Andean Chile, Dark Energy is the size of a telephone booth and uses 63 separate CCD sensors and a light-gathering mirror almost four meters high.

After eight years of construction, the camera has been installed at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, in Chile, to discover the secrets of the universe, being able to photograph spots six times larger than the full moon, in individual exposures.

The main objective of this facility is to investigate the problem of dark matter and its role in the expansion of the universe.

The first images collected by the camera show the group of Formax galaxies that are almost 60 million light years from Earth.

Project history

In 1998, two teams of astronomers studying distant supernovae made an astonishing discovery: the Universe is expanding rapidly. However, according to Einstein's theory of general relativity, gravity should be slowing down this expansion. To explain cosmic acceleration, cosmologists were faced with two possibilities: either 75% of the Universe is composed of a new and exotic component called dark energy, with gravitational characteristics opposite to ordinary matter, or general relativity must be replaced by a new theory of gravity on cosmological scales.

The Dark Energy Survey (DES) has been designed to unravel the origin of the acceleration of the Universe and the nature of dark energy, observing the evolution of cosmic expansion throughout its 14 billion years of existence with great precision. More than 120 scientists from 23 institutions in the United States, Brazil, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom are working on the project.