The European Southern Observatory (ESO) said yesterday it would go ahead with construction of the world´s most powerful land-based telescope, a behemoth designed to locate planets in other solar systems.
Building work on the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) has been authorised by ESO´s governing body after funding pledges exceeded 90 percent of the roughly one-billion-euro ($1.25-billion) cost, the organisation said.
The E-ELT will be a 39-metre (1,535-inch) -aperture optical and infrared telescope sited on Cerro Armazones in Chile´s Atacama desert, one of the most arid places in the world.
Intended to start peering into the heavens 10 years from now, the E-ELT “will be the world´s largest ´eye on the sky´,” ESO said in a press release.
“It will enable tremendous scientific discoveries in the fields of exoplanets, the stellar composition of nearby galaxies and the deep Universe,” it said.
