Question

One of the earliest astronomical CCDs had 160,000 pixels, each recording 8 bits (256 levels of brightness). Today's CCDs may contain 100 million pixels, each recording 15 bits (32,768 levels of brightness).
How many times more bits of data are produced by today's CCDs in a single image than that of the earliest CCDs?

Answer 1

10000 times more data

Explanation:

Data recorded by earlier astronomical CCD's = (pixel× bit/pixel)

160,000×8 = 128,0000

Data recorded by new astronomical CCD= (pixel× bit/pixel)

= 10^9×15= 15×10^9

= \frac{15\times10^9}{128\times10^4}

= 11718.75

Going by this calculation, it means nearly 10000 times more data

Answer 2

Answer:

10000 times more data

Explanation:

Data recorded by earlier astronomical CCD's = (pixel× bit/pixel)

160,000×8 = 128,0000

Data recorded by new astronomical CCD= (pixel× bit/pixel)

= 10^9×15= 15×10^9

comparison = $\frac{15\times10^9}{128\times10^4}$

= 11718.75

Which means nearly 10000 times more data