The largest digital camera on Earth has started a ten-year surveysurvey/ˈsɜːrveɪ/L2调查；勘测a careful study of an area or group of things to collect information of the universeuniverse/ˈjuːnɪvɜːrs/L2宇宙，包括所有星系、恒星、行星和空间everything that exists, including all stars, planets, and galaxies. It sits on a mountaintop in Chile. The camera is part of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. It is 3200 megapixels and about the size of a small car. Every night, it takes a picture of the sky every 30 to 40 seconds. These images will create a time-lapse record of the cosmos.
The project is called the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). Brian Stone, acting director of the National Science Foundation, says, "Today, we begin filming the greatest cosmic movie ever made." The observatoryobservatory/əbˈzɜːrvətɔːri/L2天文台，用于观测天文的建筑或设施a building or place with special equipment for watching the stars and planets cost about $800 million to build. It will scan the same areas of the sky with six different filters. This helps scientists see faint details that they missed before.
Scientists hope to find stars, supernova explosions, and galaxies. They also want to learn more about dark matterdark matter/dɑːrk ˈmætər/L2暗物质，一种看不见但占据宇宙大部分质量的物质a mysterious substance that makes up most of the universe's matter but cannot be seen directly and dark energy. Dark matter makes up most of the universe's matter. Dark energy is a force that speeds up the universe's expansionexpansion/ɪkˈspænʃən/L2膨胀，指宇宙不断扩大的过程the process of becoming larger or spreading out; here, the universe getting bigger over time. Each night, the observatory collects 10 to 20 terabytes of data. That is hundreds of 4K movies worth of information.
