Supergiant telescopes are now considered one of the top priorities for ground-based astronomy. They will enormously advance astrophysical knowledge, allowing detailed research on a variety of current topics: planets around other stars, the earliest objects in the Universe, supermassive black holes, the nature and distribution of dark matter and dark energy that dominate the Universe.
Since late 2005, ESO has been developing a concept for a new giant telescope together with the European astronomical community and industry.
The new instrument is designated by the acronym ELT (Extremely Large Telescope). This telescope, a revolutionary new design for ground-based instruments, will have a 39-meter primary mirror and will be the world's largest optical and near-infrared telescope: “humanity's greatest eye on the sky.”
Program The ELT was accepted in 2012, and at the end of 2014 the start of construction of the telescope was officially announced. In May 2017, the President of Chile came to the ceremony of laying the first stone in the foundation of the future telescope.
The latest news and press releases regarding ELT construction can be found at this link.
Scientific research with ELT
The start of regular operation of the telescope is planned for the beginning of the next decade. The power of ELT will be harnessed to address the biggest scientific challenges of our time. He will do many things for the first time, such as finding the Holy Grail of modern observational astronomy: Earth-like planets around other stars, in “habitable zones” where life can exist. He will also conduct “stellar archaeology” in nearby galaxies, making fundamental contributions to cosmology by measuring the properties of the first stars and galaxies, determining the nature of dark matter and dark energy. And most importantly, astronomers are preparing for the unexpected - for new unforeseen questions, which, of course, will appear along with new discoveries made with ELT.
Scientific tasks
A versatile optical and near-infrared telescope with an exceptionally large aperture. Some areas of research: high redshift galaxies, star formation, exoplanets, protoplanetary systems.
Live Image
See Cerro Armazones in real time from the nearby peak of Cerro Paranal. The picture is updated every hour during the daytime. Click to enlarge.
This concept shows the ELT canopy from a bird's eye view. Credit: ESO.
Today, truly innovative observatories are being built all over the world, which will open a new page in astronomy. Locations for these scientific sites include Mauna Kea in Hawaii, Australia, South Africa, southwestern China and the Atacama Desert, a remote plateau in the Chilean Andes. This extremely dry environment already hosts numerous arrays that allow astronomers to view distant regions of space in high resolution.
One such facility would be the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), a next-generation array that would use a complex primary mirror nearly 39 meters (128 feet) in diameter. At this very moment, its construction is underway on Mount Cerro Armazones, where construction teams are busy preparing the foundation for the largest telescope.
Construction of the ELT began in May 2017 and is currently scheduled for completion by 2024. Initially, in 2012, ESO indicated that construction of the ELT would require approximately $1.12 billion. Taking into account inflation, which amounted to US$201 billion by 2018, and assuming a future inflation rate of 3%, the cost of the project increased to US$1.47 billion by 2024.
In addition to the high-altitude conditions required for efficient astronomical observations, where atmospheric interference is relatively low and there is no light pollution, ESO also needed a huge, flat space to lay the foundation for the ELT. Since no such place existed, ESO had to flatten the top of the Cerro Armazones mountain in Chile.
The key to the ELT's incredible imaging capabilities is its honeycomb-like primary mirror, which itself consists of 798 hexagonal mirrors, each 1.4 meters (4.6 feet) in diameter. This mosaic structure is used because it is impossible to build a single 39-meter mirror capable of creating high-quality images.
By comparison, ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT), the largest and most advanced telescope to date, uses four satellite telescopes that have mirrors 8.2 meters (27 feet) in diameter and four traveling satellite telescopes with mirrors of about 1.8 meters (5.9 feet) in diameter.
However, the 39-meter ELT will have significant advantages over the VLT, with a mirror area that is a hundred times larger than the VLT and the ability to collect a hundred times more light, the new telescope will be able to observe much fainter objects. In addition, the ELT will have a single solid mirror, and the images it will capture will not be heavily processed.
The ELT will be able to collect about 200 times more light than the Hubble Space Telescope. Using powerful mirror and adaptive optical systems to correct for atmospheric turbulence, the ELT is expected to be able to directly image exoplanets in distant star systems.
In addition, the ELT will help measure the acceleration of the expansion of the Universe, which will allow astronomers to solve a number of cosmological mysteries, such as the role of dark energy in cosmic evolution. By exploring deep space, astronomers will also be able to refine and supplement currently available models of the evolution of the Universe.
In the foreseeable future, the ELT will be joined by other next-generation telescopes such as the Thirty Meter Telescope, the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), and the Five Hundred Meter Spherical Telescope (FAST). At the same time, space telescopes such as TESS and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are expected to provide even more exciting discoveries.
A revolution in astronomy is coming, and it will happen very soon!
The illustration shows a three-dimensional model of the E-ELT telescope "in its natural habitat" - on a specially prepared site on the top of Mount Armazones (Cerro Armazones) in Chile.
The technology that astronomers are now working with is so advanced that they can look into almost the most distant (and therefore most ancient) corners of the Universe. But, as often happens, for example, in sports, in order to improve an already first-class result a little more, colossal efforts are needed. In order for a telescope to see fainter objects, it must collect more light. Since there is nowhere to take extra observation time, it is necessary to increase the size of telescopes. Fortunately, technologies like active and adaptive optics make this possible.
Emphasizing the size and technical features of new telescopes (or, as is sometimes joked, due to the lack of imagination among astronomers), they are often given simple names. For example, Very Large Telescope (VLT) or Large Binocular Telescope. This also applies to many telescopes that are still planned to be built: the Thirty-meter Telescope (with a main mirror diameter of 30 m), the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. The largest of the telescopes of the near future - the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) with a mirror diameter of 39 meters - is also in trend.
On 25 May this year, an important milestone in the history of the E-ELT was passed: at ESO's headquarters in Garching near Munich, Germany, a contract was signed with the ACe Consortium for the construction of the telescope's tower, dome and mechanical structures. This is the largest contract in the history of ground-based astronomy: its value is 400 million euros.
For this money, the consortium will build a rotating dome with a diameter of 85 meters with a total mass of about 5,000 tons and install in it fasteners for the telescope and pipe structure, the total moving mass of which will exceed 3,000 tons. Both of these mechanical structures will be much larger in size than all similar structures of modern ground-based telescopes. The tower will be almost 80 meters high, and the area under it will be comparable to the area of a football field.
The mirror itself will have an area of 978 m2 and consist of 798 regular hexagons with a diagonal of 1.4 m and a thickness of only 5 cm. If we compare the E-ELT with any VLT unit, it will collect 15 times more light, which means see objects 15 times fainter. It is this new generation of telescopes that is expected to be able to see signs of the biosphere on planets outside the solar system and discover the very first galaxies after the Big Bang.
Alexey Paevsky
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On June 20, 2014, in the central part of the Atacama Desert in Chile, the top of the Cerro Armazones mountain, 3060 meters high, was blown up.
Joke about telescope names
This explosion represents the first stage in the formation of a flat platform measuring 300 x 150 meters on the top of the mountain and the removal of 220,000 cubic meters of rock.
On the platform formed, ESO's European Southern Observatory will create the largest telescope in the world, called E-ELT (Extremely Large Telescope).
Telescope area
On 13 October 2011, the Republic of Chile and ESO signed a land transfer agreement for the construction of the Extremely Large Telescope. Chile donated an area of 189 square kilometersaround the Cerro Armazones mountain for the installation of E-ELT, as well as a 50-year concession for an additional 362 sq. km of adjacent territory, which will protect the E-ELT from light pollution and eliminate the possibility of mining. At the current 719 sq. km.of land around Cerro Paranal, the total protected area around the Paranal-Armazones complex reaches 1270 sq. km.!
Why Chile?
Time-lapse filming from the top of Cerro Armazones
Why was Chile chosen for construction? The thing is that there are not many places on earth with an ideal astroclimate. The best place is considered to be the Andes of Chile, in particular the Paranal mountain plateau and its surroundings, where the 4th VLT telescopes, the giant ALMA radio telescope and other telescopes such as VISTA have already been built and are operating. The air in this area is dry, and the altitude of 3000 meters and a large number of sunny days make this place one of the best for construction, in addition, Chile is part of the ESO. Another interesting place with a good astroclimate is the top of Maun Kea in Hawaii, where several large telescopes are already operating.
E-ELT parameters
Gallery of E-ELT computer renders
The generation of large (8-10 meters) telescopes built in the early 2000s brought many discoveries to their creators. At the moment, astronomy is experiencing a golden era of its development. The projected E-ELT telescope will have capabilities that are 10 times greater than those of its predecessors. The main mirror will be almost 40m in diameter, which is almost half the size of a football field. It will collect nearly 15 times more light than today's most advanced optical telescopes. It will cover approximately 1,000 square meters of 800 hexagonal segments, each 1.4 meters in size, 50mm thick and covering a field of view in the sky 1/10 the size of the full Moon.
The E-ELT will be much larger than all the other large telescopes that are planned to be built soon or have already been built, including the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), which will be built in Hawaii.
For example: the dimensions of the future E-ELT, the already existing telescopes "VLT", with a diameter of 8 meters (to the right of the E-ELT) and the pyramids on the Giza plateau.
Telescope size comparison
Compared to the gigantic size of the main mirror, all other elements of this optical device look insignificant. For example, its secondary monolithic mirror has a diameter of “only” 4.2 meters. However, just recently it was not a shame to use such a “secondary” as a primary mirror. Also, the E-ELT telescope will have as many as 5 adaptive mirrors that will correct distortions introduced by our atmosphere. All this is not surprising, because the cost of the project is estimated at 1 billion euros! It is expected that in 2022 the Extremely Large Telescope will be launched and we will see its first images.
What to expect from the E-ELT telescope?
One of the most interesting tasks of the future telescope is the study of exoplanets. Not so much their discovery as obtaining direct images of large exoplanets, as well as their satellites. With the help of E-ELT, we will be able to find out the parameters of their atmospheres, as well as monitor their orbits. Many fundamental questions are waiting to be resolved, and one of them is the formation of planetary systems, the processes of the emergence and development of protoplanets. With the help of an advanced optical instrument, it will be possible to detect water molecules or organic substances in protoplanetary disks around stars.
Exoplanet Research
The planet around the star HR 8799 was discovered by direct observation in the IR spectrum. HR 8799 is located 129 light years away in the constellation Pegasus.
Today we know much more about stars than about their exoplanets, and all because modern instruments provide a good opportunity to observe stars, but are of little use for studying exoplanets.
Planet near the star Beta Pictoris in both elongations
The main advantage of direct observation of exoplanets is that, unlike the Kepler space telescope, we will be able to study exoplanets lying outside the orbital plane of their stars. Many more exoplanets whose orbits do not coincide with the line of sight will be discovered. So, the 53 stars closest to our Sun in a circle with a diameter of 10 parsecs are very interesting for the direct search for exoplanets the size of Earth. Of these 53 stars, five are binary systems with unseen satellites and possibly possible planets. In 20 years, we will probably be able to obtain evidence of the existence of extraterrestrial life - by analyzing the spectra of planetary atmospheres. Provided that life exists on these planets.
Limit magnitude
A Jupiter-type planet, magnitude, at a distance of 1 AU. from a star similar to our Sun, when examined from a distance of 10 parsecs, it will be about 24. So with the 8-meter VLT telescope we can observe objects up to magnitude 27. Using E-ELT for direct observation we can expect to see objects up to magnitude 30-31.
Other research objects
In addition to extraterrestrial planets, E-ELT can be used to see disks around giant stars, binary interacting stars, and accretion disks around mysterious black holes.
The theoretical resolution limit of E-ELT will be about 0.003 sec, in the visible range. For example, the star Betelgeuse has a disk size of about 0.055 sec.
Betelgeuse disk with a resolution of 0.037 sec, field of view about 0.5 sec. The image was obtained using the VLT telescope
Did you know?
The E-ELT will collect 100,000,000 times more light than the human eye, 8,000,000 times more than the Galileo telescope, and 26 times more than a single 8.2-meter diameter VLT telescope. The E-ELT will collect more light than all existing 8-10 meter diameter telescopes combined.
How E-ELT will work
When adaptive optics operates, laser beams will form so-called “laser stars” in the atmosphere, the images of which will be used for subsequent correction of atmospheric distortions arising from turbulence in the atmosphere. Although the E-ELT is a truly gigantic structure, the maximum deviation of the surface of its main mirror from the ideal shape will not exceed some hundredths of a micron.
Such a complex task does not end there. There are still many challenges that engineers and scientists must solve. For controlled deformation and movement of each individual segment of the mirror, 15 electric motors are provided. Each segment has six sensors whose task is to record its position in relation to its neighbors.
Control
There are 800 segments in total and it turns out that it is necessary to read data from about 5 thousand sensors at a speed of up to 1000 times per second. These are active optics elements that determine the shape of the mirror when aimed. There is also adaptive optics, which also requires making many measurements for 600 actuators - actuators, whose task is to change the surfaces of 5 adaptive mirrors in real time. These mirrors, when observed, will continuously vibrate at kilohertz frequencies, correcting turbulent phase distortions caused by our atmosphere.
Official trailer