The camera works, the team explained, by bouncing lasers off distant objects, and measuring the time it takes for the light to travel back to the detector.

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At one end of the tube is a source of ultraviolet light and at the other a detector.

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The light-sensitive area on each CCD detector measures 45.0mm by 59.0mm, encompassing 1, 966 pixels by 4, 500 pixels.

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The detector records these streams of light , enabling physicists to identify the original neutrino and measure the amount of energy it had.

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When a neutrino interacts in the NOvA detector , the particles it produces leave trails of light in their wake.

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That is not very exciting by itself, but this detector counts single photons (the particles of which light is composed) and can do so at room temperature.

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Light striking this detector liberates electrons from some of the silicon atoms, producing an electrical signal that is converted by the chip's electronics into a picture.

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The aperture is used to focus different wavelengths of light in different parts of a scene onto a detector.

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