The European Southern Observatory buried a time capsule to celebrate its Extremely Large Telescope, which will be the world’s largest visible and infrared light telescope when it comes online in 2028.
The European Southern Observatory buried a time capsule to celebrate its Extremely Large Telescope, which will be the world’s largest visible and infrared light telescope when it comes online in 2028.
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A 2008 Astronet road map called for the Extremely Large Telescope. Some astronomers are upset by the group’s latest effort. ESO
‘Something went wrong.’ Some astronomers feel left out of European road map
May. 11, 2021 , 2:40 PM
For more than 1 year, Astronet, a group of more than 50 astronomers, has labored to draw up priorities for the next 2 decades of European astronomy. A partial draft plan, released in February, lists the field’s most pressing scientific questions, such as how primordial gases coalesced into the first stars and galaxies and whether the atmospheres of exoplanets betray signs of life. To answer them, the plan calls for new facilities including the Einstein Telescope, a gravitational wave detector to be built in a network of underground tunnels; antennas installed on the radio-quiet far side of the Moon; and a fleet of orbiting telescopes to probe exoplanet atmospheres.