本帖最后由 人与自然 于 2013-1-24 15:15 编辑
大西洋月刊
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/01/the-european-southern-observatory/100444/
High in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) has built several collections of telescopes and observatories on remote, arid mountaintops. The locations are ideal for ground-based astronomy -- far from city lights, high above sea level, with more than 350 cloudless days a year. The ESO is an intergovernmental research organization with 15 member states, founded in 1962. It has been making observations from the southern hemisphere since 1966, and continues to expand its facilities to this day. The sites are La Silla, which hosts the New Technology Telescope (NTT); Paranal, home to the Very Large Telescope (VLT); and Llano de Chajnantor, which hosts the APEX submillimeter telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Construction on the newest project in Chile's desert -- the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT), a 40-meter-class telescope -- is due to start later this year in Cerro Armazones. I've collected below some amazing images of the ESO's observatories, and a few of the astronomical images they've been able to make over the years. [ 34 photos total]
As the full Moon sets, the Sun is about to rise on the opposite horizon. The ESO's Very Large telescope (VLT) has already closed its eyes after a long night of observations, and telescope operators and astronomers sleep while technicians, engineers and day astronomers wake up for a new day of work. Operations never stop at the most productive astronomical ground-based observatory in the world. ESO staff member Gordon Gillet welcomed the new day by capturing this stunning image from 14 km away, on the road to the nearby Cerro Armazones. (ESO/Gordon Gillet)
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This view of the Chajnantor Plateau shows the site of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), taken from near the peak of Cerro Chico. Babak Tafreshi, an ESO Photo Ambassador, has succeeded in capturing the feeling of solitude experienced at the ALMA site, 5,000 meters above sea level in the Chilean Andes. When the telescope is completed in 2013, there will be a total of 66 such antennas in the array, operating together. ALMA is already revolutionizing how astronomers study the Universe at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths. Even with a partial array of antennas, ALMA is more powerful than any previous telescope at these wavelengths, giving astronomers an unprecedented capability to study the cool Universe -- molecular gas and dust as well as the relic radiation of the Big Bang. (ESO/Babak Tafreshi) #
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A glowing laser shines forth from the VLT, piercing the dark Chilean skies, its mission is to help astronomers explore the far reaches of the cosmos. We have all gazed up at the night sky and seen the stars gently twinkle as the Earth's turbulent atmosphere causes their light to shimmer. While it's a beautiful sight, it causes problems for astronomers, who want the crispest possible views. To help them achieve this, professional stargazers use something that sounds as though it has come from science fiction: a laser guide star that creates an artificial star 90 km above the surface of the Earth. The laser energizes sodium atoms high in the Earth's mesosphere, causing them to glow and creating a bright dot that appears to be a man-made star. Observations of how this "star" twinkles are fed into the VLT's adaptive optics system, controlling a deformable mirror in the telescope to restore the image of the star to a sharp point. By doing this, the system also compensates for the distorting effect of the atmosphere in the region around the artificial star. The end result is an exceptionally crisp view of the sky, allowing ESO astronomers to make stunning observations of the Universe, almost as though the VLT were above the atmosphere in space. (ESO/G. Huedepohl)
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The reflection nebula Messier 78, captured using the Wide Field Imager camera on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the La Silla Observatory, Chile. This color picture was created from many monochrome exposures taken through blue, yellow/green and red filters, supplemented by exposures through a filter that isolates light from glowing hydrogen gas. (ESO/Igor Chekalin) #
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This evocative image shows a dark cloud where new stars are forming along with a cluster of brilliant stars that have already emerged from their dusty stellar nursery. This cloud is known as Lupus 3 and it lies about 600 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion). It is likely that the Sun formed in a similar star formation region more than four billion years ago. This picture was taken with the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile and is the best image ever taken of this little-known object. (ESO/F. Comeron) #
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This aerial view shows beautifully the Chilean Atacama Desert around the ESO Paranal Observatory, home to the VLT (at bottom right). Close to the VLT, one can see the dome of the VISTA survey telescope, and to the right, the Paranal Residence and basecamp. The high peak in the distance is the 6,739-meter high Andean volcano named Llullaillaco. Also in the image, to the middle left, one can see an isolated peak with a curvy road leading to its summit. This is Cerro Armazones, the selected home for the future European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT). (ESO/M. Tarenghi) |
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