WORLDS OF GLASS

The view into the endless expanses of the universe

The history of astronomy has been experiencing a regular construction boom for several years. In Chile, on Hawaii or in outer space, telescopes are being built that make all the facilities constructed to date look tiny. For instance, the largest optical telescope in the world – the European Extremely Large Telescope, or E-ELT for short – is currently being built on Cerro Armazones, a mountain in Chile. With a main mirror 39 metres in diameter, this will be the largest telescope in the world, providing insights into the universe that have been impossible until now. Its photographs will have 16 times the resolution of those taken by the famous Hubble space telescope.