Chilean mountain to lose its top for European Extremely Large Telescope
The top is being lopped off the 3,000-metre Cerro Armazones in Chile to host the world's largest optical and infrared telescope. Once the dust has settled and the rubble has been cleared, the mountain will be ready for the astronomers.
The top is being lopped off the 3,000-metre Cerro Armazones in Chile to host the world's largest optical and infrared telescope.
The European Extremely Large Telescope, or E-ELT, will serve astronomers and cosmologists for generations. About 2,500 tonnes of steel rigging are on order to hold a primary mirror nearly 40 metres wide, large enough to see the faintest light from the earliest stars, and pick up signs of life on planets far beyond our solar system.
"Today we cannot imagine what will be discovered," programme manager Roberto Tamai said. "I feel excited. We are opening a highway for the future knowledge of astronomy."
The telescope is the most ambitious project for the European Southern Observatory (ESO), a multinational organisation.
But first the jagged mountaintop needs to be broken apart and bulldozed to a plateau large and strong enough to hold the enormous observatory. Perched on top of the reshaped mountain, the €1.1 billion (HK$11.6 billion) E-ELT will have near-perfect conditions for scanning the heavens.