Photo from open sources
Earth’s largest optical telescope called European Extremely Large Telescope will be located in the famous for these purposes Chilean Atacama Desert where eighteen are already today other telescopes (including the ALMA radio telescope) as part of La Silla – an astronomical observatory raised to a height almost in two and a half kilometers above sea level.
The cost of this project, which started literally two days back, is about one billion US dollars. Finances him – the international research center ESO (Europian South Observatory), which includes fifteen European countries and Brazil.
The new telescope will be equipped with five segments with a diameter of large at 39 meters. In this case, the rotating dome in diameter will be commensurate with the length of the football field – 86 meters. Telescope mass will be about five thousand tons, only its moving part will approach three thousand tons. According to the plan of European Extremely Large Telescope will have to start its activities in 2024, his main task will be to find exoplanets beyond Solar system.
Telescope
