The world’s largest ground-based telescope reaches a new milestone in its construction

It’s called the Extremely Large Telescope and it will be the world’s largest ground-based telescope for visible and infrared light.

Its construction is in charge of the European Southern Observatory, which announced that the “world’s largest eye in the sky” has 50% of its construction completed.

The second phase of ELT construction may be faster than the first half

Photograph of the Extremely Large Telescope in a night landscape
Credit@ESO

The largest visible-light and infrared telescope ever created is at a fast pace of construction, with about 50% of the process completed so far. The Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), as it is called, is a work carried out by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) that is carrying out this mega construction on the top of Cerro Amazonas, in the Atacama desert, in Chile.

Several components that will be used in the construction of the ELT are being produced in Europe and, also in the manufacturing phase of the components, the pace is being fast, even anticipating that 50% of the final construction will last less than the first . half.

Construction photograph of the Extremely Large Telescope
Credit@ESO

According to the European Southern Observatory, the ELT “will have a pioneering five-mirror optical design, including a giant main mirror (called M1) made up of 798 hexagonal segments.”

ESO also guarantees that more than 70% of the remaining components have already been manufactured and that the six laser sources of the adaptive optics system, crucial to the system, are also in the testing phase.

Remember that in 2014, the top of Cerro Amazones was flattened to create space to house the largest eye in the sky and that its construction began nine years ago. The first phase of construction faced some challenges, especially in the manufacture of components, not only due to its complexity, but also due to the restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Now, the European Southern Observatory is optimistic and believes that this imposing work will be completed in just five years.

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