After 20 years, researchers have finally completed work on the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) Camera – one of the most advanced tools yet to search for life outside of the Solar System.

Researchers at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory said the 3,200-megapixel camera will provide details on the observable universe in “unprecedented” detail and generate vast quantities of data on the southern night sky that can be mined for new insights.

The team hopes the data will aid in the quest to understand dark energy, which is theorised to be driving the accelerating expansion of the universe, and the hunt for dark matter, which makes up around 85% of the matter in the universe.

Once operational, the camera will map the positions and measure the brightness of a vast number of night-sky objects. It will also look for signs of weak gravitational lensing, in which massive galaxies subtly bend the paths light from background galaxies take to reach us. Weak lensing reveals something about...