Pan-STARRS (Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System)
Pan-STARRS is a project involving huge automated telescopes. The first has recently been commissioned and is able to scan one sixth of the sky each month in order to locate and track moving objects in space. It may seem like a useless endeavor to the uninitiated. However, consider the ‘Rapid Response’ part of the acronym that makes up its name. If you haven’t guessed already, it is designed to locate objects that may be on a collision course with Earth. In this regard – it can hardly be considered a useless endeavor because it has the capacity to warn us if a massive asteroid is threatening to wipe us all out.
The telescope itself has a 1,400 mega pixel capability. Considering an average digital camera has around four to eight mega pixel capability; you can imagine how powerful the lens is in this telescope. As stated in the previous paragraph, it is able to scan one sixth of the sky each month. This equates to the whole sky in six months. In this regard, it is a pretty powerful tool that can give us plenty of warning in the event a rogue asteroid is threatening to kill us all. The first telescope developed for the Pan-STARRS project is named PS1. If you were to print out one image it has captured at an average resolution it would be the size of a basketball court.
This project has been started utilizing funds supplied by the U.S. Air Force. As more of these super telescopes are required it is fair to assume that other countries may get involved with the project for research purposes as it can also be an excellent tool to track the activity of specific planets and stars. The massive power of this telescope can maybe help unravel many of the mysteries we still find ourselves contemplating about what is actually out there in the great beyond
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