Original subtitles

- [Narrator] This film takes us on an expedition

across the southern starry skies.

The cosmic journey

takes us to powerful supernova explosions,

mysterious planetary nebulas,

veracious black holes,

as well as to the most modern telescopes in the world.

And we will follow the path of the planet hunters

as they discover exotic new worlds.

(dramatic music)

The starting point for our travels to the outer edge

of our universe is one of the driest places on earth,

the Atacama Desert.

The European Southern Observatory, or ESO for short,

is what makes this journey to the stars even possible.

ESO is the motor that drives

international astronomy research.

Currently, it is supported by 16 member states.

In Northern Chile, ESO has four locations,

Chajnantor, Paranal, La Silla, and soon, Cerro Armazones.

There, in 2024, ESO will commence operation

of the world's largest telescope.

At the peak of the Cerro Paranal

stand four mighty telescopes.

This telescope array is the Very Large Telescope,

or VLT for short.

There the many reasons why the astronomers have chosen

Northern Chile to install their best celestial scouts.

- This is one of the best places in the world

for ground-based optical astronomy

because of the very special

geographical and atmospheric conditions we have here.

When you look at the sky from the ground,

you have to think like you're diving inside a bubble,

which is our atmosphere, which is the air we breath,

oxygen, which is what allows life on earth,

but at the same time, it is an obstacle

when we wanna look at the sky,

so, we need places with very specific conditions,

and the more sophisticated the machines,

the more strict are those conditions

to build giant telescopes.

Basically, what we look for, is a place with very low

turbulence and a very clear atmosphere and very dry.

Why dry?

Because, water vapors absorbs a lot,

especially infrared radiation, and the turbulence,

because the turbulence distorts the light

and therefore we have poor image quality

if the atmosphere is turbulent.

We have a very special configuration because we are

just 12 kilometers away from the shore of the Pacific Ocean,

but at the same time,

we are here at 2,600 meters of altitude,

and we are above what we call

the thermal inversion layer of the atmosphere,

which determines the average altitude of the cloud's cover.

So, this thing is like, keeps all the moisture

100 meters above sea-level,

and above this layer, the atmosphere is very clear

and is very calm.

And also we have these conditions

very stable all over the year.

This place is not very strongly affected

by seasonal phenomenon, so we have

more or less the same conditions

in the winter and in the summer time.

- [Narrator] The ideal climactic conditions

are an important factor

for obtaining sharp images of the cosmos.

In order to further enhance the telescope's vision,

ESO engineers make use of some optical tricks.

The foremost motto in telescope construction is,

the bigger, the better.

The VLT's mirrors, with a diameter of 8.2 meters,

are a good example.

The 430 ton telescope platform moves with precision

to set its sights on its celestial target.

Four smaller, mobile, auxiliary telescopes

boost the VLT's optical power.

This would make it possible to distinguish between

the two headlights of a car

standing on the surface of the moon,

at a distance of 380,000 kilometers from Earth.

In order to achieve this tremendous imaging quality,

the light of the four large telescopes is combined.

A virtual mirror with a diameter of 140 meters is created.

If one adds the light of the four auxiliary telescopes,

the size of the mirror grows to over 200 meters.

The light is combined in underground tunnels

to create a single focus.

Due to the differing distances of the telescope

to the common focal point,

there is a minimal time delay between the beams of light.

Mirror carriages compensate this delay

with an accuracy of 1000th of a millimeter.

Astronomers call the combination of telescopic light

interferometry.

Constant measurements made by ESO engineers

guarantee a consistently high quality image.

The interferometer of the VLT has captured

the world's sharpest image of a star to date.

The disk in the middle of the picture

is the surface of the star itself.

T Leporis is surrounded by a shell of gas

that is constantly being emitted bu the giant star.

A further trick called adaptive optics

ensures even greater image sharpness.

Thanks to a discharged laser beam

that causes the existing sodium to glow

at an altitude of 90-kilometers,

an artificial lodestar is created.

Wavefront sensors, aimed at the lodestar,

measure the thermal distortions

caused by the Earth's atmosphere.

With the help of the measured data, a small mirror,

positioned in the light path of the main mirror,

is continuously distorted.

This enables the correction of the atmospheric turbulences.

The 23-ton-heavy VLT primary mirror

distorts itself under its own weight,

causing the image to blur.

This is where another trick called

active optics comes into play.

Plungers under the mirror push it back into its ideal shape.

An image analyser

that continuously measures the surface of the mirror,

provides the data used to control the 150 actuators

with nanometer precision.

In recent decades, great progress has been made

in researching our solar system.

Space probes from Earth have visited planet after planet,

until in 2015, the dwarf planet, Pluto, was finally reached.

But astronomers have even grander plans.

Since the mid-'90s, they have been tracking down planets

in distance star systems, so-called exoplanets.

The hunt for planets is the primary task

of the SPHERE instrument that is mounted on a VLT mirror.

Although only a small number of exoplanets

have been detected so far,

SPHERE has mastered this challenge well,

allowing us a valuable look at the faint solar companions.

The powerful planet-finder

blocks the light of the central star

with the help of a disk,

otherwise the star would simply outshine the planet,

and it would remain invisible to us.

The SPHERE instrument captures

the polarized light of a star.

The light of a star is always in a disordered state.

When solar rays pass the surface of a planet, however,

they are minimally directed, and thus polarized.

SPHERE captures this light,

allowing a picture to be made of an exoplanet

that is 300 light years away.

AU Microscopii is a young star surrounded by a dust disk,

an important indicator for the creation of new planets.

SPHERE is deployed in 2014

in the search for possible planets in this star system.

In the process, the astronomers experience a real surprise.

Five wavelike arches

can be seen moving away from the central star.

The astronomers compare the images made by SPHERE

with images from the Hubble Space Telescope

made in previous years.

The result of the long-term observation,

the wavelike arches move extremely quickly,

and can even overcome

the gravitational pull of the central star.

Solar eruptions could be one explanation

for this unusual phenomenon.

Material from an orbiting planet is torn loose

by the force of a solar eruption, and ejected into space.

In the immediate vicinity of the VLT,

the VISTA Survey Telescope sets its focus

on very large sections of the heavens.

- VISTA's the first survey telescope at Paranal,

and it nicely complements the existing,

Very Large Telescopes, the eight-meter telescopes,

because, essentially, doing surveys,

it finds objects that they can study.

So if you like, it finds the needles in a haystack,

and then the VLTs will study in great details

the needles that have been found by VISTA,

and understand what they are and what's going on in,

for example, the early universe.

The thing that is special about VISTA is that

its got a large area, it's a four-meter-diameter mirror,

it's got a very large field of view,

about one and a half degrees,

and it'll also work in infrared,

and that combination of those three properties

make it the most powerful telescope in the world

for doing infrared surveys.

- [Narrator] With their telescopes, the astronomers observe,

not only the spectrum of light that is visible for our eyes,

they also scan outer space from the gamma ray range

to the radio wave range.

- VISTA's a telescope with infrared camera,

and this allows us to look at the sky

in a way that we can't see with an optical camera.

So, specifically, infrared cameras see

preferentially cool objects, objects at a high red shift,

or indeed objects that are hidden behind dust clouds.

- [Narrator] The comparison between optical images,

such as those made by the VLT and the VISTA infrared images

clearly shows that astronomers are now able to gain

a much more comprehensive insight

when it comes to celestial bodies.

A very different method of astronomical observation

is the use of many very small telescopes.

The next generation transit survey consists of 12 telescopes

with a mirror of only 20 centimeters in diameter.

The facility is designed to operate fully automatically,

and is able to continuously monitor the brightness

of hundreds of thousands of stars in the southern sky.

The mini telescopes look for planets that, seen from earth,

pass directly in front of their mother star.

In the process, they block some of the star's light.

This minimal fluctuation in brightness

reveals the existence of a planet.

With the help of the data gathered,

the large ESO telescopes

are then able to focus on the exoplanets

that have been located by the mini telescopes.

Are we able to ponder a thing that we can neither see,

hear, smell, taste, nor feel?

Astronomers have been facing this challenge

for over 100 years.

The center of our Milky Way.

Here, an invisible secret lies hidden,

and science fiction becomes reality.

A super massive black hole

is sucking up everything that comes close to it.

The mass of the black hole

is four million times that of our sun.

Since the black hole allows no light to escape

and is therefore invisible,

it can only be detected indirectly.

For more than 20 years now, the ESO telescopes

have therefore been measuring the paths of objects

orbiting around the black hole.

- We've obtained the evidence for the black hole,

by looking at the motions of individual stars,

and we have obtained orbits for around 30 stars,

and these stars go around the black hole

just like the planets go around the sun.

It was possible to follow the orbits of the stars

by using adaptive optics on the Very Large Telescope,

which allows us to look at the center of the Milky Way

with the precision which is equivalent to seeing a coin

at about 100 kilometer distance.

- [Narrator] The center of the Milky Way contains

yet another object, a cloud of gas.

With a speed of eight million kilometers per hour,

it will soon be swallowed up by the black hole.

- The clouds consists mainly of hydrogen gas,

gas which we see anyhow in the galactic center

all over the place.

This particular cloud weights, more or less,

three times the mass of Earth,

so it's a rather small and tiny blob only,

but it glows very brightly in the light of the stars

which are surrounding the cloud.

The black hole, imagine it sitting here,

has a tremendous gravitational force,

and the cloud, as it comes in,

it will be elongated and stretched.

It will become, essentially like spaghetti.

It will be elongated and falling into the black hole.

- [Narrator] It borders on a paradox that here,

of all places,

in one of the least hospitable corners of the Earth,

astronomers are searching for life on distant planets.

But, does not the Atacama Desert, provide compelling proof

that advanced life forms can flourish,

even under extreme conditions?

In the barren mountainous regions of the Andes,

wild animals struggle to survive.

A condor has been tracking its prey

since the early morning hours,

the desert fox gets wind of a potential meal,

and the vicugnas, finally,

are waiting to be shorn for their valuable wool.

A lizard emerges from a rare pool of water

to warm itself in the desert sun.

The reptile is always on its guard against predators.

Pink flamingos add a touch of color.

With their characteristic beaks,

they filter plankton from the water.

And, with a bit of luck,

they might also catch some small hermit crabs.

For all the creatures here, water is essential.

But it might take years for it to rain again.

The first ESO facility was built in Chile in the 1960s.

Since then, over two dozen telescopes have been installed

at the La Silla Observatory.

For a long time, the Swedish-ESO Submillimetre Telescope

was the only telescope in the southern hemisphere

capable of observing molecular clouds.

The New Technology Telescope is the first large telescope

to incorporate active and adaptive optics.

When it was inaugurated in 1989,

these were groundbreaking technologies

in the field of celestial observation.

TRAPPIST is dedicated to the study of comets

in our solar system,

as well as to the detection of exoplanets.

The telescope is operated from a control room in Belgium.

The name, TRAPPIST was chosen because Trappist Beer

was the preferred drink of the Belgium astronomers.

The Trappist monks hold the exclusive brewing rights

for this royal barley drink.

In 2017, there was cause for a toast,

as astronomers announced the discovery of a new solar system

with a record number of seven Earth-sized planets.

The TRAPPIST telescope laid the foundation

for this discovery.

At least three of the rocky planets

could be covered by oceans of water.

Sky watching is not just about capturing

images of distant worlds, if one wants to go into detail,

one has to analyze the light of a star

and study its composition.

This approach, called spectography,

is one of the most powerful tools astronomers have

at their disposal.

In order to be able to read the light,

it must be broken down into colors.

Every chemical substance leaves an imprint of dark lines

in the light of a star.

These absorption lines are the fingerprints of the elements,

and, as such, form a unique pattern.

Spectography thus helps us to gain an in-depth understanding

of matter in outer space.

The HARPS spectrograph is attached

to the 3.6-meter ESO telescope.

The instrument holds the record

for the detection of exoplanets.

- HARPS is absolutely a fascinating spectrograph

with an extreme stability, it's a vacuum spectrometer,

with the extreme stability on the long-term.

So, at the present time, most of the low mass planets

have been discovered by this instrument

at La Silla in Chile.

- [Narrator] HARPS can measure velocities

of 3.5 kilometers per hour.

That is equivalent to the speed

of a very leisurely walk on Earth.

- Most of the planet discovered today have been discovered

just by the wobble of the velocity of a star,

because you have the gravitational

influence of the planet turning around,

and evidently, less massive is a planet,

more it's difficult to detect it.

If the mass of the planet is large enough,

like the mass of Jupiter or more massive,

you have almost no choice.

It should be a big ball of gas, hydrogen of helium.

When we have planet in the range of Earth's mass,

it's much more difficult.

The nature of this object could be quite different.

It could be a hotkey planet,

it could be a big piece of ice,

but if this planet migrate close to the star,

we can have a notion of the surface,

or it could be some kind of evaporate gas.

So, it's much more difficult to be sure

of the nature of this kind of low mass object.

- [Narrator] In 1995, Professor Mayor and his team

discovered the first exoplanet

revolving around a sun-like star.

Since then, the search for life on other planets

has been the Holy Grail of astronomy.

Until now, however, it has never been possible

to provide evidence for life forms on an exoplanet.

The planet must be located within the habitable zone.

This zone is the narrow range in which a planet

must be located in relation to its central star,

in order for water to exist permanently in liquid form.

If it is too close to the sun,

it will be bombarded by deadly x-rays.

If it is too far from its mother star,

it will become a frozen desert of ice.

Optical telescopes can not depict the surface of a planet,

but radio telescopes listen for signals

from alien civilizations

in the hopes that the aliens are just as curious as we are.

We could get lucky and find signs

of a highly developed civilization.

Perhaps a ring world, an artificial structure

built around a star.

But the chances for this are likely to be rather small.

So far, there are more than 3,500 known exoplanets

with new ones being added every day.

It won't be long before we will be able to say

we are not alone in the universe.

Could it be that our cosmic neighbors

are not even that far away from us?

Measurement data indicates that the nearest star to Earth,

Proxima Centauri, is orbited by a habitable planet.

But since red dwarfs like Proxima Centauri

are changeable stars,

they can mimic the appearance of a planet.

In order to find out more,

a global observation campaign has been launched.

- I, together with my colleges,

are representing the Pale Red Dot Collaboration,

a project that joins 31 scientists

of eight countries around the world,

to study and search for exoplanets

around our closest neighbor, Proxima Centauri.

The star revealed a signal which was significant

but was not unique, and we were not sure,

then, if that signal was due to magnetic activity.

That's why we started the Pale Red Dot Campaigns.

It has finished, and it finished successfully.

- What we are doing here is basically measuring

the motion of this star over a few orbital periods,

or a few periods of the signal that we thought

was in the data.

For this we are using the HARPS spectrograph,

and also we are looking at the star

with photomatic telescopes that basically tells us

if the star is flaring, if there is activity,

if the star is rotating,

or is something that could be causing this signal that

we saw in the previous data

and we are trying to confirm now.

We conclude that Proxima Centuri is orbited by a planet

at an 11.2 days period.

We can estimate that the mass of the planet

is around 1.3 Earth masses,

and that's basically the information that we have.

From that we can use Kepler's Law to infer the distance

between the planet and the star, and for example,

its temperature, and this is what my colleague, Ansgar,

will tell you about.

- Knowing the temperature of the star,

this means that the temperature on the planet

is very similar to the one on Earth,

assuming the planet also has an atmosphere.

We also know that the mass of the planet

is 1.3 Earth masses.

That's the minimum mass,

but it's quite unlikely that it's a lot higher than this.

From this, and simulations,

and other observations from other missions,

we can infer that this planet actually has a surface.

And if it has a surface, if it has an atmosphere,

and if it has water, it is quite likely

that it is very similar to Earth.

Now, does this planet have an atmosphere?

Does it have water?

We don't know.

But it is not excluded.

Different models of planet formation and planet evolution

tell us that there are scenarios that can end up

with a planet with an atmosphere and with water.

So, it is not unlikely that this planet

is quite similar to Earth.

The spectacular finding about this of course is that

the system is so close to our Earth and solar system,

and in the next generations we will learn a lot

about this system because Proxima B is our neighbor.

- [Narrator] The Breakthrough Initiatives

have established a research program called Starshot.

The goal of the program is to send a space probe

to our neighboring star.

On the board of directors are the astrophysicist

Stephen Hawking, the founder of the Breakthrough Initiatives

and internet billionaire, Yuri Milner,

as well as Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg.

With the Breakthrough Initiatives,

ESO has signed an agreement to finance the modification

of the VLT instruments.

This will enable a more precise search of Proxima Centuri

for habitable planets, and a more exact calculation

of the flight paths for space probes.

The Starshot concept revolves around the installation

of laser cannons on Earth,

which are used to power a light sail spacecraft

that is deployed in outer space.

The laser cannons combine their light output

into a 100 gigawatt laser beam.

The highly reflected sail is irradiated over a distance

of two million kilometers for a period of 10 minutes,

until a speed of 1/5 the speed of light is reached.

Once the spacecraft reaches Proxima Centuri,

after a 20-year journey, it slows down

with the help of the star's gravitational force.

This allows a flyby of the planet Proxima B,

while the probe collects atmospheric data

and images of the planet.

The spacecraft then sends the entire data package

back to Earth.

As the laser signal is transmitted through space

at the speed of light, the data package arrives

at the receiving station after only 4.3 years.

And the mysteries of Proxima B can be solved.

Another night of observation begins in La Silla.

For the astronomers in the control room,

the work routine begins.

Soon, however, an event in outer space

will capture the attention of the observation team.

At the end of its lifespan, a massive star collapses.

This triggers an enormous gamma ray burst.

Particles and hard gamma radiation

are emitted from the dying star.

Such bright bursts of gamma rays

are also caused by neutron stars, or supernovae,

colliding with a black hole.

NASA's Swift satellite detects a gamma ray burst in space,

and transmits the position

to the ground-based telescopes on Earth.

The time of peace and quiet at La Silla is over.

Without human intervention, three robotic telescopes

begin their observation programs within minutes.

Gamma ray bursts are so bright

that they can outshine an entire galaxy,

and yet, the observation must take place immediately,

as the afterglow lasts only a few hours.

In the parallel observatory as well,

the gamma ray bursts are being monitored closely.

The core of a planetary nebula consists of two white dwarfs.

The spiral orbits gets closer and closer

until the stars merge, and a supernova comes into being.

The gamma ray burst puts the VLT into rapid response mode.

On the control panel the telescope operators

ensure that the VLT can be safely moved.

The telescope then carries out the observation

fully automatically.

This allows the astronomers to observe the gamma ray bursts

within minutes of their discovery.

With such short-lived events, the length of time that passes

determines whether one can gather high-quality data

or no data at all.

The Chajnantor high plateau,

with an elevation of 5,000 meters above sea level,

is the highest ESO telescope site.

ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array,

allows the observation of wavelengths

of around one millimeter,

which lie between then infrared and radio wave ranges.

The extreme elevation opens a window onto the universe that,

until now, had not been visible from lower regions,

where water vapor literally swallows up

the millimeter wave lengths.

The Operations Support Facility, or OSF for short,

is where the antenna components are assembled and serviced.

ALMA is the result of international cooperation

between the European ESO partners,

the United States and Canada,

as well as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

The radio telescopes must be solidly built

to withstand temperatures of between

- 20 and +20 degrees Celsius,

fierce altitude winds and intense solar radiation.

The large, metallic, reflective dishes

are up to 12 meters in size, and are adjusted so precisely,

that their maximum in precision is less than 25 micrometers.

That is thinner than a sheet of paper.

It took over 10 years for the ALMA project to be realized.

The official commissioning of the ALMA facility

in March, 2013, gets an enthusiastic welcome from space.

- Greetings from the International Space Station.

I'm Expedition 34 Flight Engineer Tom Marshburn

with my crewmate Chris Hadfield

of the Canadian Space Agency.

As we look down upon a magnificent Atacama Desert,

high in the Chilean Andes,

we can see the result of an immense effort

by the nations of the world

to study the universe in new ways.

Today, a giant telescope called ALMA,

the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array,

is being inaugurated.

Comprised of 66 large radio dishes,

spread across miles of high-altitude desert,

ALMA is opening a new frontier.

Millimeter and submillimeter wave length light from space

carries precious information

about the formation and evolution of galaxies,

stars, planetary systems,

and even the molecularly precursors of life.

- Together with the National Science Foundation,

Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array, NASA's Hubble Telescope,

the future James Webb Space Telescope,

ALMA will enable the exploration of the universe

with unprecedented power.

We congratulate the scientific communities of North America

and Europe, and East Asia, on today's achievement.

All the very best to you, and enjoy your new discoveries.

- [Narrator] The ALMA Array did not take long

to produce the first spectacular discoveries.

Using millimeter radiation,

ALMA makes celestial bodies visible that have a temperature

of only a few degrees above absolute zero,

which is -273 degrees Celsius.

Among the first images captured by ALMA

are the gas clouds in the radio galaxy Centaurus A.

For the first time, the cool gas clouds

of the neighboring galaxy become visible.

The 66 antennas are spread out across 16 kilometers

on the Chajnantor Plateau.

The result is an enormous radio telescope,

with which a golf ball could be recognized

at a distance of 15 kilometers.

At a breathtaking altitude of 5,000 meters above sea-level,

the ALMA Operations Site is the highest high-tech building

on our planet.

It houses the supercomputer called the Correlator,

that processes the signals of all the individual antennas.

At 5,000 meters, the air is so thin

that twice the normal airflow is needed

to cool the hard drives.

The world's highest elevation supercomputer

combines 134 million processors,

and manages 17 quadrillion calculations per second.

The low air pressure also makes it impossible

to use conventional rotating hard drives.

In addition, the Correlator must also be able to withstand

the earthquakes that frequently occur in Chile.

One focus of ALMA's observation activities

is on protoplanetary disks.

This is a region around a star where new planets are formed.

The picture shows such a disk

around the young star, HL Tauri.

The newly-forming planets tear apart the gas disks

surrounding the host star.

ALMA makes this important evolutionary step

in the creation of planets visible.

Within the protoplanetary disks,

lumps of rock form out of dust particles,

building material for future asteroids, comets, and planets.

Another of ALMA's capabilities

is the detection of molecular structures.

Sugar molecules have formed around the sun-like double star

IRAS 16293-2422.

Here, the building blocks of life are present

in the right place and at the right time,

allowing them to become part of the planets

forming around the stars.

In the disks surrounding the star TW Hydrae,

ALMA detects methyl alcohol molecules,

another basis for future lifeforms

that has been discovered in a protoplanetary disk.

How do you actually transport the 100-ton ALMA antennas

from the OSF base camp at 2,900 meters

up to the Chajnantor high plateau

at an elevation of 5,000 meters?

Two powerhouses named Otto and Lore go into action.

The ALMA transport vehicles

are burly wonders of engineering,

20 meters long, 10 meters wide, and six meters high.

The heavy-duty transporters have 28 wheels,

each functioning as a pair which can rotate

independently of one another in any direction.

A 28-kilometer trip is required

to reach the Chajnantor Plateau.

At a maximum speed of 12 kilometers per hour,

an elevation difference of around 2,100 meters

has to be overcome.

The monster truck is equipped with a suspension system

that can compensate at any time

for the unevenness of the dirt roads.

With increasing altitude,

the power of the 700 horsepower engine drops dramatically.

The reason for this is the low oxygen content in the air.

After nearly three hours, the plateau is reached.

A remote control is used to externally control

the heavy duty transporter

until the anchor place is reached.

Carefully, with millimeter precision,

the sensitive mirror is set down on the baseplate.

The transport team is rewarded for their effort

with a beautiful dusk.

There is a striking similarity between the surface of Mars

and the terrain of the Atacama Desert.

This natural simulation terrain is ideal

for the testing of Mars rover vehicles.

The Atacama Desert is nearly as dry as the red planet.

On average, less than two liters of rain per square meter

fall in the high Andes per year.

These are typical desert conditions.

Ulta-violet radiation levels are twice as high

as at normal elevation.

During the day, the thermometer reaches 30 degrees Celsius

while at night, it drops to a frigid -15 degrees.

Due to the arid climate,

only a few species can survive here,

such as the fescue bush, which is able to cover the ground

during the dry season as well.

The giant cacti that can grow up to nine meters in height

are also able to survive despite the scarcity of water.

Desert grass is another extremely robust plant species

that thrives in the high desert climate.

But then, something completely extraordinary happens.

(thunder crackling)

Overnight, the desert explodes in a sea of color.

For several weeks, the plants are in full bloom,

conquering what had, until then,

been an extremely inhospitable corner of the globe.

If such magnificent flora can bloom with so little water

in the barren wasteland of the Atacama Desert,

couldn't this example encourage us humans to one day

turn the desert planet of Mars into a habitable blue world?

The 3,000 meter high summit of the Cerro Armazones

is the future home of the European

Extremely Large Telescope, or EELT for short.

The leveling of the mountain is the first milestone

for the world's largest telescope,

which will be able to make observations

in both optical and infrared ranges.

The first construction phase of the EELT began in 2014.

Construction costs alone

amount to approximately one billion Euros.

The countdown is running.

Blast experts are laying the foundation for a new era

in the history of astronomy.

(speaking in foreign language)

(exploding)

Today's telescope domes are dwarfed by the EELT.

The rotating 85-meter dome alone weights 5,000 tons,

and the list of superlatives goes on.

It collects 13 times more light

than any other optical telescope in use today.

This is made possible by the gigantic

39-meter-diameter primary mirror.

The light that is captured then passes across five mirrors,

thus enabling a relatively compact design.

The new telescope design includes a system

of adaptive optics that allows for the tracking

of four lodestars at the same time.

The primary mirror is not made of one piece,

but is constructed out of 798 hexagonal mirror segments.

Each segment has a diameter of 1.4 meters,

and is only 50 millimeters thick.

In an assembly facility at ESO in Munich, Garching,

engineers test the interplay of mirror segments

on a prototype.

After it goes into operation in the year 2024,

the EELT will begin to tackle some of the greatest

scientific challenges of our time.

Perhaps it will air the secrets of dark matter

and of dark energy.

The EELT will capture images of comets and planets

within young star systems and will analyze its atmospheres,

always in search of traces of life.

The big eye in the skies will live the veil

left by remnants of supernovae,

thereby contributing to a better understanding

of the colossal star explosions.

The telescope will also make fundamental contributions

to cosmology by providing us with insights

into the intricate structures of galaxies.

It will gather important data

about the expansion of the universe,

its gravitational forces,

as well as the formation of new stars and black holes.

At the end of our cosmic journey, one thing is certain,

we should always expect the unexpected.

Out in the universe, surprising discoveries await us

that cannot be foreseen from today's perspective.

(dramatic music)