Extremely Large Telescope - A Home For The E-ELT

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ESOcast 16: E-ELT Site Chosen.

On 26 April 2010, the ESO Council selected Cerro Armazones as the site for the planned 42-metre European Extremely Large Telescope. Cerro Armazones is an isolated mountain at 3060 metres altitude in the central part of Chile's Atacama Desert, some 130 kilometres south of the town of Antofagasta and about 20 kilometres away from Cerro Paranal, home of ESOs Very Large Telescope.

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"This is an important milestone that allows us to finalise the baseline design of this very ambitious project, which will vastly advance astronomical knowledge," says Tim de Zeeuw, ESOs Director General. "I thank the site selection team for the tremendous work they have done over the past few years."

ESOs next step is to build a European extremely large optical/infrared telescope (E-ELT) with a primary mirror 42 metres in diameter. The E-ELT will be "the worlds biggest eye on the sky" — the only such telescope in the world. ESO is drawing up detailed construction plans together with the community. The E-ELT will address many of the most pressing unsolved questions in astronomy, and may, eventually, revolutionise our perception of the Universe, much as Galileo's telescope did 400 years ago. The final go-ahead for construction is expected at the end of 2010, with the start of operations planned for 2018.

The decision on the E-ELT site was taken by the ESO Council, which is the governing body of the Organisation composed of representatives of ESOs fourteen Member States, and is based on an extensive comparative meteorological investigation, which lasted several years. The majority of the data collected during the site selection campaigns will be made public in the course of the year 2010.

http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1018/
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Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• e-elt
• eelt
• site
• eso
• cast
• european
• extremely
• very
• large
• telescopes
• space
• cerro
• armazones
• paranal
• chile
• atacama
• desert
• optical
• infrared
• astronomy
• universe
• galileo

[picabloo]

I find it funny that this telescope is suppose to discover what else is out there, life, the universe and everything else, just happens to be 42 meters long lol

[canuzzi]

I am proud as european that europe does so amazing science projects lately: The LHC, E-ELT ans the ITR. But please USA come back on your feeds in science! Bush stopped imortant projects like a new US large collider, they joined last minute the ITR - after stopping own projects in fussion, and seeing - the european start really building the ITR. Instead the started under Bush the snake oil missle defense project. I hope your new administration does beside health care some important turn arounds.

[SuperDogbrown]

very interesting video thanks

[MrBrucebracey]

very interesting video thanks

[sprattysy]

Very enjoyable thank you

[TheSpikeystuff]

some great inforamtion here thanks

[grisgrisy]

brilliant video

[TheSanovita]

i really like this video

[ftopdirs]

brilliant this video you

[wewdawg1]

This is amazing!

I don't understand why people are harping on the USA. I am not American but I admire their many ambitious projects. They obviously have in recent years cut spending due to the recession, but they are still funding (almost entirely) the JWST which will cost three or four so times as much as this project. Either way, good stuff!