Press conference on ELT site selection

On April 16, 2010, the ESO Council took the final decision on the baseline site for the planned Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). Here in the picture, the press conference held in Chile, the same day. From left to right, Gonzalo Argandoña, Chile ePOD lead, Massimo Tarenghi, ESO Representative in Chile, the Ambassador Gabriel Rodríguez, Director of Science, Technology and Innovation of the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and María Elena Boisier, former President of the Chilean National Commission for Scientific Research and Technology (CONICYT). The site selected for the ELT is Cerro Armazones, a mountain at an altitude of 3046 metres in the central part of Chile’s Atacama Desert, some 130 kilometres south of the town of Antofagasta and about 20 kilometres from Cerro Paranal, home of ESO’s Very Large Telescope.