The 305-metre-wide dish also was featured in the Jodie Foster film Contact and the James Bond movie GoldenEye. The decision was mourned by scientists around the world who used the telescope at the Arecibo Observatory for years to search for asteroids, planets and extraterrestrial life. The solicitation does not include operational support for current infrastructure at the site that is still in use, including a 12-metre radio telescope or the Lidar facility, which is used to study the upper atmosphere and ionosphere to analyze cloud cover and precipitation data. It also seeks the implementation of a research and workforce development program, with the centre slated to open next year in the northern mountain town of Arecibo where the telescope was once located. Instead, the agency issued a solicitation for the creation of a $5-million education centre at the site that would promote programs and partnerships related to science, technology, engineering and math. One of its ultimate goals will be, according to ESO, to have images “of rocky exoplanets to characterize their atmospheres and directly measure the acceleration of the expansion of the Universe”.The National Science Foundation announced Thursday that it will not rebuild a renowned radio telescope in Puerto Rico, which was one of the world's largest until it collapsed nearly two years ago. The climatic characteristics of the Atacama Desert and its arid weather, which allow observations in a perfectly clear sky a very high proportion (90%) of nights of the year, make it a particularly favorable place for astronomical observations. “It’s a project for the future that will allow us to reach other distances in the Universe,” says Susy Solis, geologist and technical assistant for the construction of the ELT. With its diameter of 39 meters, the ELT “will collect 15 times more light than optical telescopes in operation today and will provide images 15 times sharper than those of the Hubble Space Telescope”, according to ESO, the Intergovernmental Organization for astronomy in Europe, financed annually to the tune of 198 million euros by 16 European member countries. The current optical telescopes, with a diameter of 8 to 10 meters, have above all enabled scientists to discover exoplanets, these planets in orbit around other stars where the search for traces of life is concentrated.īut to deepen their knowledge, more precise, and therefore larger, observation instruments are needed, capable of collecting a greater quantity of light. “The ELT is the evolution of the VLT (…) It’s obviously a completely different scale to anything that’s been done before, so it has very different (technological) requirements,” hence the time required for the work, Guido Veccia, site manager, told AFP. The phase of “major civil engineering works” is currently 40% complete, with the construction of the surrounding wall supporting the dome which will support the mirror panel. The construction cost of the enormous 2,800 ton set is estimated at 1.3 billion euros. “It’s a huge technological feat to be able to have the levels of precision necessary to be able to use these telescopes to the maximum (…), something that pushes back the barriers of technology”, enthuses Luis Chavarria. After developing the Very Large Telescope (VLT) that is in use in Chili, the European observatory began to develop the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT).
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