in 2014 the tip of Cerro Armazones in
the heart of Chile's Atacama Desert was
removed in quite a dramatic fashion
the result was a flat plateau
representing the very first stage in
Essos most ambitious project yet
constructing the European extremely
large telescope or e-elt for short now
ESO has awarded the biggest contract him
ground-based astronomy to build the
e-elt dome and telescope structure so
it's a good time to take a look at what
the e-elt will be
this is the esocast cutting-edge science
and life behind the scenes at ESO the
European Southern Observatory
not far from Essos Paranal Observatory
cerro amazonas will be home to the e-elt
one of the next generation of enormous
telescopes a main mirror 39 meters
across and a protective dome almost 80
meters high will make this one of the
biggest astronomical projects ever
undertaken truly an extremely large
telescope e-elt is like all big
astronomical telescopes a reflecting
telescope mirrors are key to its
operation and there are five of them in
total by bouncing the light from one
mirror to another it's possible to make
the telescope relatively compact without
this series of mirrors to fold the light
beam the telescope would be even bigger
the mirrors can also be used to make
adjustments that result in the best
images possible the main mirror is
segmented and is made up of 798
individual elements which together add
up to a reflecting surface 39 meters
across
the faint light from distant objects is
reflected from the main mirror by the
four other mirrors eventually reaching
the focus of the telescope we're
sophisticated scientific instruments
will be placed the m4 mirror is
particularly special it's a very thin
flexible mirror that sits at the heart
of the elts adaptive optics capability
adaptive optic systems flex and Bend the
mirror by tiny amounts and with great
precision to compensate for the blurring
effect of the Earth's atmosphere
this will allow the e-elt to produce
images of celestial objects around 15
times sharper than the Hubble Space
Telescope the e-elt will be equipped
with a suite of world-class scientific
instruments as befits the most powerful
telescope in the world work is already
underway to design these devices which
will help to exploit the enormous
observational power of the Tasco but in
the midst of all this magnificent
engineering let's not forget that this
is all about the science as the biggest
and most sophisticated telescope ever
built the e-elt will take us into a new
era of observational astronomy it's
gigantic primary mirror will do two
things that set the e-elt apart from the
current generation of large telescopes
first it will collect about 15 times
more light than any other optical
telescope in operation today enabling
scientists to observe much fainter
objects then they can now and second
when coupled with the adaptive optics
system it will produce images that are
much sharper and more details than
currently available
this will enable astronomers to study
planets around other stars in
unprecedented detail we will learn about
how they form and the conditions on
their surfaces we may even find a planet
similar to the earth and perhaps hope to
find evidence for some form of life on
another world and the distant universe
will be revealed in ways never before
possible the e-elt will answer important
questions about how the universe as we
see it came into being and what the
future will hold
it will enable us to study the evolution
of galaxies from the earliest times and
will tell us more about some of the
nature's most violent events when black
holes at the Centers of galaxies accrete
material and become active galactic
nuclei ESO has a long and proud history
of pushing the boundaries of astronomy
both the engineering and the science the
ELT is the next step in East those
remarkable quest indeed humanities
remarkable quest to unravel the
mysteries of the universe
it's a huge step but it will certainly
not be the last
I heard about the only person
it doesn't have TV coverage of the baby
and it man we got the black up now
you're gonna be getting a TV picture is
still yes we are getting
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