Chinese optical chip maps 5,600 stars in seconds

A new Chinese optical chip can map 5,600 stars in seconds with unprecedented precision. The fingernail-sized Yuheng chip analyzes light in real-time, offering spectral precision 100 times higher than conventional imagers. It distinguishes colors separated by less than a tenth of a nanometer. This technology, developed at Tsinghua University, could revolutionize fields from material science to astrophysics, potentially speeding up astronomical mapping tasks significantly.