06-20-2014, 04:28 PM
E-ELT is at less than 10,000 feet, Mauna Kea is 14,000 feet. E-ELT is in the Atacama desert, far south of the equator, so its field of view is the southern sky. This is an important development because most astronomy has been done from the northern hemisphere due to previous telescopes being in northern industrial areas.
While deep space astronomy will go on, the heightened interest is to actually image planets in other solar systems, mainly searching for earth-like planet around a yellow star. This search is visual, so it has to be for nearby star systems. It hasn't been determined if there is a rocky planet around Alpha Centauri B (4.5 light-years)due to the binary star system making confirmation difficult. Beyond that is Barnard's star (6 light-years) and it's been confirmed there is no earth-like planet there. The next closest star with a confirmed planet is Epsilon Eridani (10.5 light-years). The star is slighty smaller and older than Sol, and a gas giant planet has been confirmed, with good chances for having smaller rocky planets in inner orbits.
That E-ELT is a massive engineering project in a remote location, that is why it will take 10 years to build it. The Thirty Meter Telescope TMT should be finished first by a couple years.
"This island Hawaii on this island Earth"
While deep space astronomy will go on, the heightened interest is to actually image planets in other solar systems, mainly searching for earth-like planet around a yellow star. This search is visual, so it has to be for nearby star systems. It hasn't been determined if there is a rocky planet around Alpha Centauri B (4.5 light-years)due to the binary star system making confirmation difficult. Beyond that is Barnard's star (6 light-years) and it's been confirmed there is no earth-like planet there. The next closest star with a confirmed planet is Epsilon Eridani (10.5 light-years). The star is slighty smaller and older than Sol, and a gas giant planet has been confirmed, with good chances for having smaller rocky planets in inner orbits.
That E-ELT is a massive engineering project in a remote location, that is why it will take 10 years to build it. The Thirty Meter Telescope TMT should be finished first by a couple years.
"This island Hawaii on this island Earth"
*Japanese tourist on bus through Pahoa, "Is this still America?*