World's Largest Telescope Dome Takes Shape | ESO's Extremely Large Telescope

World's Largest Telescope Dome Takes Shape | ESO's Extremely Large Telescope

The dome of the European Southern Observatory's Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) is beginning to take shape. This is the largest telescope dome ever built. The structure is about 88 meters in diameter and nearly 80 meters high, giving the dome a footprint roughly equivalent to that of a football field. The giant ELT dome will house the telescope and its interior structure, providing protection from the extreme environment of Chile's Atacama Desert.

The Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) will have a 39-meter mirror (almost half the length of a football pitch) and will thus be by far the biggest telescope in the world to observe in the visible and the near-infrared (there are larger radio telescopes). The current largest optical telescopes have diameters of up to ten meters, and the ELT's diameter will thus be four times greater. This diameter was chosen because it is the minimum diameter needed to achieve some of the driving science cases. For example, the ELT will be able to image rocky exoplanets and to characterise their atmospheres, while the existing ESO Very Large Telecope (VLT) can only indirectly detect such Earth-like planets. Moreover, the ELT will be able to directly measure the acceleration of the expansion of the Universe. Adaptive optics systems are fully incorporated into the design of the telescope to compensate for the fuzziness in the stellar images introduced by atmospheric turbulence. The ELT will have more than 5,000 actuators that can change the shape of its mirrors a thousand times per second.

Altitude: 3046 meters

Planned year of technical first light: 2027

Learn more about ESO’s ELT at: https://elt.eso.org 

Video Credits: European Southern Observatory (ESO)

Directed by: Angelos Tsaousis

Editing: Angelos Tsaousis

Web and technical support: Gurvan Bazin and Raquel Yumi Shida

Written by: Bárbara Ferreira

Consultants: M. Wallner, R. Tamai

Footage and photos: ESO, G. Hüdepohl (atacamaphoto.com), L. Calcada, A. Tsaouis, J. Porte, M. Nadjar, I. Casas del Valle

Acknowledgement: CIMOLAI

Duration: 1 minute

Release Date: Aug. 11, 2023

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