NASA's ultralow-noise superconducting camera smashes pixel limit in search for Earth-like planets

NIST team members Bakhrom Oripov (left) and Ryan Morgenstern (right) mount the superconducting camera to a specialized cryogenic stage Credit: Adam McCaughan/NIST.

The act of pointing a manual camera at the vast night sky and capturing a long exposure photograph, also known as astrophotography, blossomed in popularity during the regular lockdown periods of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

When recording imaging of faint sources, it’s imperative that a camera is extremely low-noise, and able to detect the smallest number of light photons, and reports the quantity of light received accurately, especially for researchers at NASA.