Light Pollution Could Put Extremely Large Telescope at Risk

There are extremely large telescopes — and then there’s the Extremely Large Telescope. (This should not be confused with the Very Large Telescope, the European Southern Observatory’s massive facility.) The Extremely Large Telescope, currently under construction in Chile’s Atacama Desert, will be the largest observatory of its kind when its construction and testing are completed in 2028.

But the continued viability of the Extremely Large Telescope is at risk from light pollution, according to a new report from Space.com. Tereza Pultarova writes that a proposed renewable energy plant situated near the region where both the VLT and ELT are located could affect the ability of both to observe space as well as they do.

According to ESO Director General Xavier Barcons, “[t]he brightness of the sky is going to increase by up to 10% from this project.” It’s a reminder of just how dark the night sky needs to be for sophisticated observatories at this level to gather data. “We might lose the ability to observe about 30% of the faintest galaxies,” Barcons told Space.com.

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The lighting conditions in the Atacama Desert have made it an international destination for scientific observatories. As Alexa Robles-Gil reported for Undark last year, the Chilean government recently announced new lighting standards with an eye towards reducing light pollution — and keeping regions like the Atacama Desert viable to host observatories.