NIST’s Light-Sensing Camera May Help Detect Extraterrestrial Life, Dark Matter

Date posted
Funding Agency
(Funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have made one of the highest-performance cameras ever. The camera is composed of sensors made from superconducting nanowires, which can detect single photons, or particles of light. With more than 1,000 sensors, or pixels, the camera may be useful in future space-based telescopes searching for chemical signs of life on other planets, and in new instruments designed to search for the elusive “dark matter” believed to constitute most of the “stuff” in the universe.