The E-ELT Moves Closer to Reality
Hello reader!
It follows a press release published in english on the day
(09/12), in the website of the “European
Southern Observatory“, announcing that the E-ELT moves closer to reality.
Duda Falcão
eso1150 — Organisation Release
The E-ELT Moves Closer to Reality
9 December 2011
Click to Enlarge
The governing
body of the European Southern Observatory, the ESO Council, has approved ESO’s
budget for 2012. This includes preparatory work on the road to the European
Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) site at Cerro Armazones and the start of
development of some very challenging optical components for the telescope. With
several ESO Member States now having committed their part of the required
additional funding, the final approval for the whole E-ELT programme is
expected in mid-2012.
At its 124th
meeting, at ESO’s headquarters, on 7–8 December 2011 the ESO Council approved
the budget for 2012, which contains funding for some of the first elements of
the E-ELT. These include the preparatory work on the access roads to the
telescope site on Cerro Armazones and the start of work on the challenging
adaptive optics mirror (M4 — i.e. the fourth mirror out of five in the
telescope). Work will start in early 2012. Final approval of the whole E-ELT
project by Council is expected in mid-2012.
Over the last
few months there has been excellent progress on the E-ELT project. An agreement
between ESO and the Chilean government signed in October 2011 included the
donation of land for the telescope and support for the E-ELT project from the
Chilean government (eso1139). During October 2011 an external
review confirmed that the E-ELT could be constructed within the proposed budget
of 1082 million euros (in 2012 euros).
Earlier
detailed reviews had already confirmed that the design is technically sound.
The September 2011 meeting of the ESO Scientific Technical Committee (STC)
endorsed the plan that describes the scope of the first instruments to be
attached to the E-ELT and the schedule for their development.
The detailed
E-ELT Construction Proposal, a 264-page comprehensive book with details of all
aspects of the project, has now been made available as well as an executive summary.
All ESO Member
States are keen to move forward with the E-ELT and have unanimously agreed on
how the additional costs of the huge project will be distributed. Three ESO
Member States, the Czech Republic, Sweden and Finland, have already committed
the extra funding. Several additional Member States, including ESO's largest
Member State, Germany, have also stated that they are now in a position to
support the project financially. It is expected that sufficient funding from
Member States will be committed by mid-2012, enabling full approval of the E-ELT project at
that time by Council [1]. This schedule assumes that Brazil will
have completed the ratification of its ESO membership by then.
“The E-ELT is starting to become reality.
However, with a project of this size it is expected that approval of the extra
expenditure will take time. Council at the same time recognises that
preparatory work must start now in order for the project to be ready for a full
start of construction in 2012,” says the ESO Director General, Tim
de Zeeuw.
Recently there
have also been some major commitments of national funds for the telescope and
its instrumentation (ann11067).
Among other
developments at the meeting, the ESO Council unanimously elected Prof. Xavier
Barcons from Spain as the next Council President, and approved the appointment
of an E-ELT Project Manager, for which candidates are currently being sought.
The E-ELT is
the biggest project ever undertaken by ESO and is the largest ground-based
optical/infrared astronomical project in history. The E-ELT is expected to
start operations early in the next decade.
Notes
[1] The Council has agreed that the project may be approved fully before 100%
of the additional Member States funding is committed.
More information
ESO, the
European Southern Observatory, is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy
organisation in Europe and the world’s most productive astronomical
observatory. It is supported by 15 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the
Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands,
Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. ESO carries out an
ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of
powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make
important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting
and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique
world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At
Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope, the world’s most advanced
visible-light astronomical observatory and two survey telescopes. VISTA works
in the infrared and is the world’s largest survey telescope and the VLT Survey
Telescope is the largest telescope designed to exclusively survey the skies in
visible light. ESO is the European partner of a revolutionary astronomical
telescope ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. ESO is currently
planning a 40-metre-class European Extremely Large optical/near-infrared
Telescope, the E-ELT, which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky”.
Links
Contacts
Lars Lindberg
Christensen
Head, ESO
education and Public Outreach Department
Garching bei
München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6761
Cell: +49 173 3872 621
Email: lars@eso.org
Richard Hook
ESO, La Silla,
Paranal, E-ELT & Survey Telescopes Press Officer
Garching bei
München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6655
Cell: +49 151 1537 3591
Email: rhook@eso.org
Source: Website http://www.eso.org/public/
Comentário; Gostaria de agradecer de público ao leitor do blog José Ildefonso pelo dica dessa matéria.
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