A camera that captures speed of light

Believe it or not, scientists have developed a superfast camera, the size of a dustbin, which can capture the speed of light. The camera can also create 3D images because it is capable of "seeing" photons of light even inside objects.

Believe it or not, scientists have developed a superfast camera, the size of a dustbin, which can capture the speed of light.

At team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) claims its superfast camera can show a bullet-shaped pulse of light travelling from one end of a laboratory flask to another in a fraction of a second, the British media said.

The scientists, however, say that it will be some time before the camera is commercially available.

Prof Ramesh Raskar at the MIT Media Lab told 'The Sunday Times': 'With our ultra-fast imaging we can actually analyse how the photons are travelling through the world.'

The camera can also create 3D images because it is capable of 'seeing' photons of light even inside objects, say the scientists.

The device was made by adapting a 'streaker tube' --used by chemists to scan and capture light. It can record the progress of light pulses through a flask of liquid. Each still picture had a shutter speed of 1.7 picoseconds -- a trillionth of a second.

Raskar added: 'Watching this it looks like light in slow motion. It is so slow you can see the light itself move across the distance. This is the speed of light captured: there is nothing in the universe that moves faster, so we are at the physical limit of high-speed photography.'