Artist’s impression comparing the size of the European Extremely Large Telescope to the Arc de Triomphe. Once completed, it has the potential to directly image large exoplanets in greater detail and possibly find out the characterisation of their atmospheres.

18 comments

  2. It only cost around $2 billion to complete. That’s the same price a it cost to build a mid-sized local bridge somewhere in Europe. That seems like a very small price to pay for a unique insight into the universe surrounding us. Jeff Bezos has a space company that sent Richard Branson into orbit and spent $500 million on private yacht, neither of which advances science at all. One of these mega billionaires could finance a telescope much larger and name it after themselves if they want to be remembered in history.

  7. Chile is certainly very nice. But then why not have it in Réunion? It is in the EU, also in the Southern Hemisphere and being mountainous it provides the same altitude as the one being used. The sky is clear enough there and there are multiple flights daily from Paris, which is convenient.

  8. I worked on its primary mirror (it’s far from being complete, actually it barely started, but my contribution is over).

    Fun fact : proportionally, if the M1 (39 meter diameter) was the size of France, there would be no defect on it larger than a ladybug. That’s how well it’s polished.

  13. Can someone explain what is the point of building optical telescopes not in the space?

  15. Using an internationally recognised unit of size measurement the Arc de Triomphe is slightly more than eleven double decker busses high.

  17. The Extremely-Large-Telescope was actually designed *and* named by Leonard of Quirm, inventor of The Going-Under-The-Water-Safely Device, the Looking-Behind-You Device, the Turning-The-Wheel-By-Means-Of-Two-Pedals-And-A-Smaller-Wheel Machine, and The Very-Fast-Coffee Machine.

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