It was a big task that several experts led by astronomer Jan Hendrik Oort undertook in the early 1960s. On horseback at the time, they trekked through Chile’s mountainous landscape in search of the best place to observe space from Earth. 60 years later, the superlative European observatory is located in the Atacama Desert – although not in Europe, and not in the northern hemisphere. Why Chile? What observations are made from here? And how are sharp images created from the signals received on a spinning globe with a disruptive atmosphere? Peter Habison, Head of Science Communication of the European Southern Observatory ESO for Austria, presented the “Olympus of modern astronomy” in more detail at a Deep Space LIVE on November 11, 2021.
The Home Delivery program “Deep Space LIVE” is supported by LINZ AG.