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Bill Gates and Microsoft Fund Telescope

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the he's-still-a-nerd-people dept.

coondoggie writes "Bill Gates and the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences this week donated $30 million to an ambitious telescope that researchers say will be able to survey the entire sky every three nights — something never done before. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) Project got $20 million from the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences and $10 million from Microsoft founder and chairman Bill Gates. Expected to see its "first light" in 2014, the 8.4-meter LSST will survey the entire visible sky deeply in multiple colors every week with its 3 billion-pixel digital camera, probing the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy and opening a movie-like window on objects that change or move. With the telescope scientists will be able to quickly find Earth-threatening asteroids and exploding stars called supernovas and will be able to map out 100 billion galaxies, according to researchers."

5 of 171 comments (clear)

  1. ah! by Coraon · · Score: 4, Funny

    but does it run Linux?

    --
    -Ours is the wisdom of Solomon, the magic of Merlyn, the fall of Icaris.
  2. I bet... by aurb · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...they are going to use it to search for potential markets for Microsofts` products...

  3. someone has to say it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Blue Sky Of Death

  4. They're going to use it to watch . . . by Rolgar · · Score: 3, Funny

    The winner of the Google Lander program land on the moon.

  5. It looks like you're trying... by gimpeh · · Score: 5, Funny
    ...to scan the sky!

    Do you want to
    • create a document template?
    • send an email to a friend?
    • send the invasion fleet to a new planet?

    --
    Script kiddies ate my sig.