"Irreparable" consequences: warning about mega-project at ESO telescope
European countries have built some of the best telescopes in the world in Chile at a cost of several billion euros.
The Milky Way above the Paranal Observatory
(Image: ESO/P. Horálek)
One of the world's most important sites for astronomical research is under threat from a planned industrial megaproject. The European Southern Observatory (ESO), which has operated the Paranal Observatory since its construction in 1999, is warning of this. A subsidiary of the US energy company AES is planning a huge industrial complex just a few kilometers away. Should it be built, it would irreversibly impair astronomical observations, "especially due to the light pollution that will be generated during the entire operating life of the project". One of the last truly untouched starry skies on Earth could only be saved by relocating it.
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Disturbing light pollution during the entire operating period
As the ESO explains, the planned megaproject covers an industrial complex of over 3,000 hectares, which corresponds to the area of a large city, such as Garching near Munich. A port, ammonia and hydrogen production plants and thousands of power generators are to be built there. The dust produced will be very harmful to astronomical observations, the research institute warns. "It is crucial to consider alternative sites for this mega-project that do not jeopardize one of the world's most important astronomical treasures," says Itziar de Gregorio, the ESO representative in Chile. An environmental impact assessment has now been requested for the project called "Inna".
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The Paranal Observatory is located in the extremely dry Atacama Desert on the approximately 2600 meter high BErg Cerro Paranal. The Very Large Telescope and other powerful observatories are located there. According to the ESO, the first image of an exoplanet was taken from there and the accelerated expansion of the universe was confirmed. The telescopes have also made a decisive contribution to research into the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, which was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2020. At the same time, among the 28 large astronomical observatories around the world, the site is the one that has suffered the least from light pollution to date.
(mho)
