The Biggest Telescope in The World
How could we advance astrophysics knowledge? We have mathematics, theoretics physics, but we must also observe the sky!
We got a lot of things to do in the sky. To study the planets minutely around the stars, maybe discover a new way of life. Search for the nature of dark energy and dark matter.
For all of those things, we need to look at the first objects in the universe — those most distant.
The universe is gigantic. The question is, How do we look further?
How could we probe further? Of course, the first thing we think is: Well, we need to build bigger telescopes, real engineering monsters.
The new generation of telescopes.
Since 2005, the ESO consortium, European Southern Observatory, has worked with his community of scientists, astronomers, engineers, companies, and industry for the construction of the ELT. The Extremely Large Telescope!
It’s a revolutionary telescope that has a 39-meter primary mirror!
I will repeat it. 39 meters! It will be the largest near-infrared and optical telescope in the world!
The ELT program was approved in 2012 and received the green sign for construction in 2014.
Many companies in Europe are working hard to equip the ELT with the most advanced and precise cutting-edge instruments capable of revolutionizing our Universe perception. The plan is to do the first light by 2025.
They are building this relentless telescope at an altitude of 3,000 meters in a site called Cerro Armazones, Chile. The location is situated about 20km away from Paranal Observatory.
Wearing clothing, a shoe, and earplugs, there I was, thanks to #MeetESO, on a journey to witness the construction site.
Can you imagine how astonishing it is for an undergraduate astronomy student? Always inside a classroom with a pen and a piece of paper, reading books, studying calculus and physics, but at least once being physically visiting the construction site of the biggest telescope ever built. It’s like the Universe telling me to keep going with astronomy — actually, was ESO.
I need to ask my engineers friends what they think about making a telescope at 3,046 meters of altitude. Seriously, this is hard level engineering.
The base at the top of the mountain is 120 meters in diameter and 85 meters high. The exact numbers with full information are on the ELT website.
To construct this kind of telescope, you also need the auxiliary building, all the facilities necessary to make this machine working. The engineers will build and distribute in a circular way around the telescope.
You need to stand here to realize how fantastic it is. In all senses! Not only in astronomy but technique, engineering, literally everything.
Do you know those colossal crane machines? Vastly used in civil engineering, they will bring from Europe a specific one capable of lifting immense structures that result in 1,000 tons of weight!
As I said before, this telescope has a primary mirror approximately 39 meters in diameter. However, it’s tricky for an ordinary telescope mirror to be this large. Its weight deforms its structure and disrupts observations. To solve this issue, they created a segmented primary mirror made up of 798 hexagons, each with 1.4 meters wide.
Why hexagons? Why not squares, triangles, circles? Well, to simplify, take a look at bees — and the honeycombs. It turns out that the hexagonal shape uses the least material to create a structure of “cells” within a given volume. Mathematics rules!
There are still many mysteries of the universe to solve. No kidding, ELT will give us images 16 times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope!
It will indeed initiate a new era for astronomy! Until then, keep looking up.
