A giant telescope grows in Chile (Feature article, great photos)

These days it takes a generation to build a great astronomical observatory. A new one is taking shape in the Atacama Desert.

By Dennis OverbyeP hotographs by Marcos Zegers
Published April 18, 2023
Updated April 19, 2023

LAS CAMPANAS OBSERVATORY, Chile — To walk among the observatory domes of the Atacama Desert is to brush your hair with the stars.

The Atacama, on a plateau high in the Chilean Andes, is one of the driest and darkest places in the world. During the day one can see to Bolivia, far to the east, where clouds billow into thunderstorms that will never moisten this region. At night, calm, unruffled winds off the Pacific Ocean produce some of the most exquisite stargazing conditions on Earth.

One evening in late January the sky was so thick with stars that the bones of the constellations blurred into the background. The Milky Way, our home galaxy, was rolling straight overhead, and the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, satellite galaxies of our own, floated alongside like ghosts. The Southern Cross, that icon of adventure and romance, loomed unmistakably above the southern horizon.

In the last half-century, astronomers from around the world have flocked to Chile and its silky skies, and now many of the largest telescopes on Earth have taken root along a sort of observatory alley that runs north-south for some 800 miles along the edge of the Atacama.

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The foundation of the Giant Magellan Telescope, which will have seven mirrors, each 8.5 meters wide.

More:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/science/astronomy-telescopes-magellan-chile.html

Or:
https://archive.ph/ZVBjS