Research infrastructure
Physics and engineering sciences
Research infrastructure
Physics and engineering sciences
ELT – Extremely Large Telescope
ELT is being developed by the European Southern Observatory (ESO), where Sweden is one of the member countries. The Swedish Research Council also contributes to funding two instruments at ELT – MOSAIC and HIRES.
The telescope is being constructed in Chile, and will be the world’s largest optical/infrared telescope, with a mirror diameter of 39 metres and will gather 13 times more light than today’s largest optical telescopes.
The potential of the telescope is entirely dependent on the instruments it will be equipped with, and the opportunities for Swedish researchers to be at the leading edge of early ground-breaking research is to a large extent dependent on their participation in the design of the instruments. As the instruments required are incredibly complex, major international consortiums are needed to develop them.
Swedish researchers are currently involved in two of the five instruments being constructed for ELT – MOSAIC and HIRES. The Swedish Research Council is contributing funding for the Swedish consortium SELTIC, which is taking part in the instrument development together with researchers from several other countries. SELTIC includes the universities of Stockholm, Uppsala and Lund.