this is the story of an epic adventure...
a story of cosmic curiosity, courage and perseverance
the story of how Europe went south to explore the stars
welcome to ESO, the European Southern Observatory, 50 years old but more vital than ever
ESO is Europe's portal to the stars
Here, astronomers from 15 countries joined forces to unravel the secrets of the universe
how? by building the largest
telescopes on earth, designing sensitive cameras and instruments
scrutinizing the heavens
cooperation has always been the basis of ESO success 50 years ago the
European Southern Observatory started out with five founding member states
Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden
soon other European countries followed
Denmark in 1967, Italy and Switzerland in 1982, Portugal in 2001 and
the United Kingdom in 2002
Over the past decade Finland, Spain, the Czech Republic
and Austria also joined Europe's largest astronomy organization.
Most recently Brazil became ESO's 15th member state, and the first non-european country to join
From remote mountaintops in Chile European astronomers are reaching for the stars
But why Chile? What made the astronomers go south?
The European Southern Observatory has its headquarters in Garching Germany
but from Europe only part of the sky can be seen
to fill in the gaps you have to travel south
ESO's first telescopes on La Silla were a mixed bunch, they ranged from small
national instruments, to large astrographs and wide field cameras
the 2.2 meter telescope, now almost 30 years old, is still producing some of the
most dramatic views of the cosmos
at the highest point of Cerro La Silla rise the biggest achievement of ESO's early years.
The 3.6 meter telescope
Aged 35 it now leads a second life as a planet hunter.
Also, Swedish astronomers built a shiny dish, 15 meters across, to study
microwaves from cool cosmic clouds.
Together, these telescopes have helped to unveil the universe in which we live
Astronomers were clearly in need of more powerful telescopes, and ESO provided
them with revolutionary new tools
The VLT is ESO's flagship facility. Four identical telescopes joining forces on
top of Cerro Paranal in the north of Chile
built in the late 1990s, they
provided astronomers with the best available technologies
In the middle of the Atacama Desert, ESO created an astronomers paradise
Scientists stay in la residencia, a guesthouse partly buried under the dirt
and rubble of one of the driest places on the planet
but inside are lush palm trees,
a swimming pool and delicious chilean sweets
Of course, the unique selling point of The Very Large Telescope is not its swimming pool but
its unequaled view of the universe
And this is the state of the art,
the mirrors of The Very Large Telescope, the VLT, are eight point two meters across,
but only 20 centimetres thick,
And here's the magic: a computer-controlled support
system ensures that the mirror keeps its desired shape at all times,
to nanometer precision.
Without thin mirrors and active optics, the VLT wouldn't be
possible, but there's more.
Stars appear blurry, even when observed with the best
and largest telescopes
The reason?
Earth's atmosphere distorts the images
Enter the second magic trick: adaptive optics
On Paranal, laser beam shoot out
into the night sky, to create artificial stars.
Sensors use these stars to measure
the atmospheric distortions. At hundreds of times per second, the image is
corrected by computer-controlled deformable mirrors
And the end effect, as if the turbulent atmosphere were completely removed
Just look at the difference:
The Milky Way is a giant spiral galaxy and at its core 27,000
light-years away, lies a mystery that ESO's very large telescope helped to
unravel
Massive dust clouds block our view of the Milky Way's core
But sensitive infrared cameras can peer through the dust and uncover what lies behind
Assisted by adaptive optics, they revealed dozens of red giant stars
And over the years, these stars are seen to move
They orbit an invisible object at the very center of the Milky Way
Judging from the stellar motions, the invisible
object must be extremely massive
A monstrous black hole weighing in at 4.3
million times the mass of our Sun
Astronomers have even observed energetic
flares from gas clouds falling into the black hole,
all exposed by the sheer power of adaptive optics
So thin mirrors an active optics make it possible to
build giant telescopes and the adaptive optics take care of the atmospheric
turbulence, providing us with extremely sharp images
But we're not done yet with our magic tricks, there's a third one, and it's called interferometry
The VLT consists of four telescopes
Together, they can act as a virtual telescope
measuring 130 meters across
Light, collected by the individual telescopes
is channeled through tunnels and brought together in an underground laboratory
Here, the light waves are combined using laser metrology and intricate delay lines
The net result is the light-gathering power of whole 8.2 meter mirrors and the
eagle-eyed vision of an imaginary telescope as large as 50 tennis courts
Four auxiliary telescopes give the network more flexibility
They may appear tiny next to the 4 Giants
Yet, they support mirrors 1.8 metres across
The Very Large Telescope interferometer reveals 50 times more detail than the Hubble telescope
For instance, it gave us a close-up of a vampire double star
One star is stealing material from its companion
Irregular paths of Stardust have been detected around Betelguese
A stellar giant about to go supernova
And in dusty discs surrounding newborn stars, astronomers have found the raw
material of future earth-like worlds.
The Very Large Telescope
is mankind's sharpest eye on the sky
But astronomers have other means to expand their
horizons and broaden their views
At the European Southern Observatory they have
learned to see the universe in a completely different kind of light
San Pedro de Atacama, tucked amidst breathtaking scenery and natural wonders
Not far from San Pedro ESO's first dream machine is taking shape, it's called ALMA
the Atacama Large millimeter/submillimeter Array
ALMA is a joint project of Europe, North America and East Asia
It operates like a giant zoom lens. Close together the 66 antennas provide a wide angle view.
But spread apart, they reveal much finer detail over a smaller area of sky.
At submillimeter wavelengths, ALMA sees the universe in a different light. But what would it reveal?
The birth of the very first galaxies in the universe in the wake of the Big Bang
Cold and dusty clouds of molecular gas, the stellar nurseries where new suns and
planets are born
And the chemistry of the cosmos
ALMA, will track down organic molecules, the building blocks of life.
At 5000 metres above sea level
the array provides an unprecedented view of the
microwave universe
While ALMA is nearly completed, ESO's next dream machine is still a few years away
See that mountain over there? That's Cerro Armazones not far from Paranal it
will be home to the largest telescope in the history of mankind
Meet the Extremely Large telescope
Thee world's biggest eye on the sky
Sporting a mirror almost 40 meters across the ELT simply dwarfs every
telescope that preceded it
Almost 800 computer-controlled mirror segments,
complex optics to provide the sharpest possible images.
The ELT is an exercise in superlatives
But the real wonder, of course, is in the universe out there
The Elt will reveal planets orbiting other stars
Its spectrographs will
sniff the atmosphere of these alien worlds, looking for bio signatures
Further away the ELT will study individual stars in other galaxies
It's like meeting the inhabitants of neighboring cities for the first time
Working as a cosmic time machine, the giant telescope lets us look back
billions of years to learn how everything began.
Astronomy is big science and it's a science of big mysteries.
Is there life beyond Earth?
What's the origin of the universe?
ESO's new monster telescope will help in our quest to understand
we're not there yet, but it won't take long
So what's next?
well, no one knows but ESO is ready for the adventure
Transcribed by ESO, translated by —