How medieval stained-glass is creating the ultimate SPACE camera?

British space scientists are using medieval stained-glass to build a 'state of the art' camera bound for Mars.
The space team are using the medieval technology to ensure pictures beamed back from Mars accurately show the colours found on the Red Planet.
Scientists have been struggling to see what the surface of Mars looks like because the high ultra violet radiation in the atmosphere causes colours to fade.
But researchers have now taken divine inspiration from medieval stained-glass - because their colours haven't faded after hundreds of years being bombarded by UV radiation.
Although medieval glass artisans didn't know they were using it, nanotechnology played a key part in creating stained-glass windows.
Medieval stained-glass was created by trapping gold nanoparticles in the 'glass matrix' to create a red colour. Silver nanoparticles, meanwhile, gave it a deep yellow colour.
'Mars has little to no ozone in the atmosphere and this means that the high ultra violet radiation can cause colours to fade when exposed to sunlight.
'The stained-glass idea comes from observing the many stained-glass windows in churches - many of which date back to medieval times.
'These have been exposed to sunlight for centuries and show little to no colour degradation.'
It will have a drill to pull samples up from 2m down, and scientific instruments to assess any organic chemistry that might be present.
A team of scientists in West Wales have created the 3D Panoramic Camera Instrument (PanCam) and the medieval stained-glass it will use.
Professor Barnes said: 'Scientists want the images from Mars to be colour corrected - as if they were being viewed by a human - to help identify scientific targets.
'I have colleagues who specialise in glass research and when they heard we needed stable coloured targets for the calibration target they said use stained-glass.
'The colour centres are formed as a nano-particle suspension within the glass and this acts as an efficient UV blocker.
'This prevents chemical reactions from occurring that will change the colours.'
They were made using traditional medieval processes developed hundreds of years ago.