ESA builds billion pixel camera for its Gaia galaxy-mapping mission

The European Space Agency (ESA) has just finished work for an advanced digital camera for its 2013 galaxy-mapping Gaia mission in partnership with e2v Technologies of U.K. The camera is a one billion pixel array digital camera with the capability to capture 3D images of the Milky Way Galaxy in outstanding clarity. ESA calls it the largest ever camera designed for a space mission. Indeed, the Gaia mission of ESA will be exploring previously unseen stars, galaxies and planets thanks to the gigantic digital camera.

Billion-pixel camera

The camera, according to ESA, mounts 106 separate rectangular electronic detectors to make images more accurate and sharp. The detectors that measure at 4.7x6 cm are smaller than a credit card and slimmer than human hair. The detectors are lined up in seven rows of charge coupled devices (CCDs) with the main array sporting 102 detectors dedicated to star detection. The remaining four detectors are to verify the image quality and stability of the 106.5º angle between a pair of telescopes, used by ESA to capture stereo views of space objects.

Gaia galaxy-mapping is one of the biggest future missions of the European Space Agency. The Gaia satellite for the mission will operate at the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrange point, the agency says. The goal of the mission, of course, is to track more stars, galaxies and planets, which have not yet been spotted. According to the ESA, Gthe aia mission will discover 15,000 planets beyond the Solar System. Meanwhile, this is what ESA has to say about its forthcoming mission.

As the spinning Gaia's two telescopes sweep across the sky, the images of stars in each field of view will move across the focal plane array, divided into four fields variously dedicated to star mapping, position and motion, color and intensity and spectrometry.