They reject electrical project that will affect astronomical observation

Santiago. A total of 40 winning scientists of the National Science Prize in Chile wrote a protest letter against a green hydrogen project that seeks to settle in the Atacama Desert (North), which would seriously affect the effectiveness of telescopes located in the area.

We express our concern about the impact that the inna megaproyectthey pointed out.

The group of scientists, who integrate national awards personalities: María Teresa Ruiz and José Masa, of Exact Sciences, and Sergio Lavanderos, of Natural Sciences, published the letter in different media rejecting the initiative that plans to build very close to the Paranal Observatory in the region in the region from Antofagasta (North), arguing that it will produce light pollution incompatible with the telescopes of the place.

This megaproject will cause irreversible impacts on the observatory facilities and in the quality of the night sky, including light pollution that will affect the sensitivity of telescopes; suspended particles, from construction and operation, which will degrade atmospheric transparency and damage the instruments; and atmospheric alterations caused by the turbulence of wind turbines, compromising air stability, essential for high precision observationsthey pointed out.

The scientists warned that in the observatory there are world -class telescopes such as the Vray Large Telescope, Extremely Large Telescope and Cherenkov Telescope Array, Instruments that allow research that helps to understand the beginnings of our universe, its evolution and the search for life on extrasolar planetsthey added.

The construction of this project would leave Chile as an unreliable host country, not fulfilling its astronomy treaties; We understand the relevance of moving towards renewable energies to face climate change, but that must be done harmoniously and sustainably, without compromising unique legacies such as our pristine heavens.

The Atacama desert is considered one of the best places on the planet for astronomical observation, due to its low cloudiness, low air humidity and distant light pollution.

Telescope construction

On the other hand, dozens of boxes with mirrors specially manufactured for the extremely large telescope (elt) are ready in a remote hill of the Chilean desert to begin to be assembled and form a huge primary mirror, whose size is equivalent to 1.5 times the height of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

With a progress of 60 percent in its construction, the project of 1,450 million euros of the Intergovernmental Organization of Science and Technology European Southern Observatory (ESO) would make its first scientific observations at the end of 2028.

It will impact virtually all areas of astronomy. We will be able to see how the first galaxies formed at the beginning of the universe, the first starssaid Itziar de Gregorio, representative of that in Chile.

In particular, we will be able to study whether in the atmospheres of these worlds, around other stars, there are signs of lifehe added.

It will be on the Cerro Armazones, 3,46 meters above sea level and about a thousand kilometers north of the capital, in the middle of the arid Atacama desert, one of the best places on the planet for astronomical observation.

It is expected that for decades the installation will be the largest of the optical-infective type in the world, with a segmented primary mirror of 39.3 meters composed of 798 pieces.

The mirrors are basically ready and waiting for their installation to be started.

This is a great challenge, first of all to implement this type of process, because in astronomy it is not typical that serial production processes are implementedSaid Tobias Muller, assembly, integration and verification manager of the ELT.

The telescope is a highly complex system, not only constituted by a mirror, but by multiple of different complexitieshe added.