Largest digital camera hunts killer asteroids

The PS1 Observatory on Haleakala, Maui just before sunrise. The new telescope is billed as the world's largest digital camera and is scanning the night sky for potentially dangerous asteroids.

A new telescope in Hawaii being billed as the world's largest digital camera has begun searching the sky for potentially killer asteroids that could endanger our planet Earth.

With a main mirror about 60 inches wide, the new telescope on Maui's Haleakala volcano peak is somewhat small when compared to the large 10-meter Keck telescopes atop the Hawaiian peak of Mauna Kea.

But the telescope's 1,400-megapixel camera is a digital giant, with 1.4 billion pixels spread across 40 centimeters to snap photos of the night sky automatically, night after night, to find potentially dangerous asteroids. A typical domestic digital camera may have 5 million pixels on a chip a few millimeters across, telescope officials said.

via Largest digital camera hunts killer asteroids - Space.com- msnbc.com.