Work begins on Extremely Large Telescope, will be able to image tiny Earth-like planets from light years away To seek out new life, and explore increasingly stupid adjectives… The European Southern Observatory in Chile has announced that it will begin construction of the Extremely Large Telescope, a monstrous telescope with a 39-meter (128 feet) main mirror. As the (silly) name implies, the ELT will be by far the largest visible-light/near-infrared telescope in the world, with the rather exciting ability to spot rocky, Earth-like planets orbiting stars that are light years away. The ESO operates a number of large telescopes in the Atacama Desert, about 370 miles north of Santiago, Chile. The Atacama is one of the best places in the world for astronomical observations, due to its high altitude (and thus thin atmosphere) and low levels of light pollution. The ESO’s telescopes have captured most of the interesting images of the Milky Way and the universe that you’ve seen on ExtremeTech over the years, including the recent image of a new solar system being born, and the 9-gigapixel photo of the Milky Way. Construction of E-ELT has already begun, with first light (completion of all the essential parts) between 2022 and 2024. The building itself will be utterly massive, with the telescope’s main structure — which holds and manipulates the primary mirror — weighing in at 2,800 tons. Like:facebook/MyItTurn Join:facebook/groups/myitturn
Posted on: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 08:15:12 +0000
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