The mountains of Chile are home to some of the most advanced astronomical equipment in the world today, and it looks like they’re about to get a new addition. Work has begun on the erection of what promises to be the world’s largest optical reflecting telescope in the world. Perched atop the nearly 10,000 foot high Cerro Armazones in Chile, the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) is the brainchild of the European Southern Observatory and is expected to be up and running in 2024.
ELT Telescope - Flickr Popular Mechanics (PM)notes that the “primary mirror of this behemoth will span 39.3 meters, or 130 feet from end to end. The first of 798 hexagonal mirror segments that will make up the ELT, each 4.2 meters (14 feet) wide, were cast early this year. Photos from the site reveal a 180-foot wide circular pit carved into the rocky soil, which will be the foundation for the ELT’s 262-foot domed (262 feet) observatory sheltering the large primary mirror. According to PM, the “site for the ELT is only a 30-minute drive from ESO’s current flagship telescope, the Very Large Telescope (which is actually four telescopes working together), perched on Cerro Paranal.
Wikimedia Commons The close proximity of support and maintenance facilities should help ESO get the ELT up an running. The location high in the mountains of Chile is desirable because the air is so dry and thin here that atmospheric refraction, which obscures astronomers’ views of the cosmos, is less of a hindrance than almost anywhere else on the planet.” Once it is up and running, the ELT is expected to allow scientists to peer into the earliest ages of the universe, reveal ancient galaxies and exoplanets and assist in hopefully solving a plethora of questions about the cosmos.
Wikimedia Commons NASA’s Director of Astrophysics, Paul Hertz is quoted as saying of the record-sized telescope: “size matters.”
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