Weird Al Wednesday - BoB!

For all you palindrome fans.




[Via Revver]

The LSST - a really big scanner for the sky

I was listening to a talk a few hours ago, and the subject of the LSST (Large Synoptic Survey Telescope) has come up, so I had to look it up, and it turns out to be very cool indeed.
It's a proposed new digital telescope, but a very special one. Here are some basic stats:

Mirror Diameter: 8.4 meter diameter mirror
Camera Resolution: 3.2 gigapixels (more than 200 sensors used)
Field of view: approx. 32,000 square centimeters (capable of covering all visible sky from its location in Chile)
Capture Rate: 15 seconds per picture

The telescope is designed to cover a larger part of the sky than is typically focused upon by other telescopes. With this telescope the entire night sky can be scanned every three days. The camera actually reads out 3.2 billion pixels each 2 seconds, and demands a data rate of 3GB/sec. That's actually 6GB for each image (at 16 bits per pixel), and remember this telescope is meant to cover the entire night sky, which means it will be generating 20 to 30 Terabytes every night.

This can detect variable objects, since it will effectively produce an incredibly detailed movie of the night sky. This results in the ability to see transient objects like cosmic explosions and the ability to discover moving objects (such as asteroids that might move close to the earth).

It'll take 12 years to finish building it, but be sure to check out the excellent LSST Tour.

(image credit: LSST Corporation)

Fingerprints can be scanned at 10 meters

A Reuters article on the technolofy of Homeland Security has this interesting quote

"We can read fingerprints from about five meters .... all 10 prints," said Bruce Walker, vice president of homeland security for Northrop Grumman Corp (NOC.N). "We can also do an iris scan at the same distance."

[Via Schneier on Security]