House photograph of the week: Gargantuan sunspots photobomb the world’s largest telescope
What it’s: The Extraordinarily Massive Telescope, which would be the world’s largest telescope when it begins operations in 2028
When it was taken: Aug. 28, 2023, and printed Sept. 4, 2023
The place it’s: On the peak of Cerro Armazones, at an altitude of 9,850 ft (3,000 meters), in Chile’s Atacama Desert
Why it is so particular: This beautiful picture of a dawn behind a building website not solely highlights certainly one of humanity’s subsequent nice ground-based telescopes but additionally reveals how energetic the solar is correct now.
In entrance of the solar’s disk is the framework of the 262-foot-tall (80 m) metal dome of the $1.56 billion (1.45 billion euros) Extraordinarily Massive Telescope (ELT), which is at the moment being constructed by the European Southern Observatory (ESO).
The telescope will likely be perched atop Cerro Armazones, a mountain in Chile’s Atacama Desert, far above the thickest a part of Earth’s environment, the place it’s going to get a lot clearer views of the evening sky. The Atacama can be one of many driest locations on Earth, with some components experiencing annual rainfall of lower than 0.2 inch (5 millimeters), based on the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Cerro Armazones has about 320 clear nights per 12 months and 0 mild air pollution, based on ESO.
When accomplished, the ELT — which you’ll watch being constructed — may have a 127-foot-diameter (39 me) mirror; for comparability, the diameter of the James Webb House Telescope‘s mirror is 21.7 ft (6.6 m). The ELT’s mighty mirror will ultimately rotate 360 levels on 36 stationary trolleys and weigh about 6,700 tons (6,100 metric tons). The large telescope will enable astronomers to seek out Earth-like planets round different stars within the liveable zones the place life might exist, probe darkish matter and darkish power, research black holes, and see the very first galaxies again to simply 380,000 years after the Huge Bang.
In July, ESO introduced that the ELT was half-built. It is due for “first mild” in 2028, based on ESO.
In the event you look rigorously on the solar within the picture, you may see small (but really planet-size) sunspots on its floor. Sunspots are darker clumps of intense magnetic discipline that effectively up from deep inside the solar and ceaselessly produce violent photo voltaic flares. It is thought that sunspots will proceed to extend because the solar nears photo voltaic most, which might arrive as quickly as the tip of this 12 months.
The picture and an accompanying time lapse of the dawn had been shot by ESO instrumentation engineer Eduardo Garcés from 14 miles (23 kilometers) away on the height of Cerro Paranal, the place ESO’s Very Massive Telescope has been analyzing the evening sky since 1998.
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