https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/05/tuesday-telescope-taking-a-look-at-the-next-generation-of-telescopes/

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Framed by luna

Tuesday Telescope: Taking a look at the next generation of telescopes

A large moon and an extremely large telescope.

Eric Berger - May 13, 2025 7:00 am | 63
[potw2512a]
The full Moon frames the ESO's Extremely Large Telescope. Credit:
Juan Beltran/European Southern Observatory
The full Moon frames the ESO's Extremely Large Telescope. Credit:
Juan Beltran/European Southern Observatory
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Welcome to the Tuesday Telescope. There is a little too much darkness
in this world and not enough light--a little too much pseudoscience
and not enough science. We'll let other publications offer you a
daily horoscope. At Ars Technica, we'll take a different route,
finding inspiration from very real images of a universe that is
filled with stars and wonder.

This week's Tuesday Telescope photo is pretty meta as it features...
a telescope.

This particular telescope is under construction in the Atacama Desert
in northern Chile, one of the darkest places on Earth with excellent
atmospheric visibility. The so-called "Extremely Large Telescope" is
being built on a mountaintop in the Andes at an elevation of about
3,000 meters.

And it really is extremely large. The primary mirror will be 39
meters (128 feet) in diameter. Like, that's gigantic for an optical
telescope. It is nearly four times larger than the largest
operational reflecting telescopes in the world.

The Europeans are in a contest, of sorts, with other very large
telescope construction projects. A consortium of several countries,
including the United States, is building the Giant Magellan
Telescope, which will have a primary diameter of 25.4 meters. This
facility is also located in the Atacama Desert. Both facilities are
targeting first light before the end of this decade, but this will
depend on funding and how smoothly construction proceeds. A third
large project, the Thirty Meter Telescope, is planned for Mauna Kea
on the Big Island of Hawaii. However, this effort has stalled due to
ongoing opposition from native Hawaiians. It is unclear when, or if,
it will proceed.

In any case, within less than a decade, we are going to undergo a
radical revolution in how we see the cosmos when one or more of these
next-generation ground-based optical telescopes come online. What
will we ultimately observe?

The mystery of what's up there left to be discovered is half the fun!

Source: European Southern Observatory

Do you want to submit a photo for the Daily Telescope?  Reach out and
say hello.

Photo of Eric Berger
Eric Berger Senior Space Editor
Eric Berger Senior Space Editor
Eric Berger is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering
everything from astronomy to private space to NASA policy, and author
of two books: Liftoff, about the rise of SpaceX; and Reentry, on the
development of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon. A certified
meteorologist, Eric lives in Houston.
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