World's darkest and clearest skies at risk from industrial megaproject

Power Company's Industrial Megaproject Plans Threaten World’s Darkest And Clearest Skies

There's a reason multiple observatories are based in the Atacama Desert in Chile.

There are places in the world from which you can observe the stars particularly well. One such place is in the Atacama Desert. For this reason, the European Southern Observatory set up its telescopes there a few years ago. But now the site is in danger.

World's darkest and clearest skies at risk from industrial megaproject

On December 24th, AES Andes, a subsidiary of the US power company AES Corporation, submitted a project for a massive industrial complex for environmental impact assessment. This complex threatens the pristine skies above ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile's Atacama Desert, the darkest and clearest of any astronomical observatory in the world.

The Paranal Observatory, in the Chilean Atacama Desert, was inaugurated in 1999. Built and Operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO), it has been vital in such important findings as the first image of a planet beyond our Solar System or confirmation that the universe is accelerating. Without going further, the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez for their findings on black holes tha…

Industrial Complex Proposal Threatens Some of the World's Clearest Skies for Astronomy

Chile's Atacama Desert is home to some of the best Earth-based observatories, though an energy company is throwing a wrench in the works.