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World's darkest and clearest skies at risk from industrial megaproject
- The Atacama Desert in Chile is home to some of the darkest and clearest skies on Earth, now threatened by an industrial project proposed by Aes Andes, a subsidiary of the US energy conglomerate Aes Corporation.
- The project includes hydrogen and ammonia production plants, a port, and thousands of generators, covering an area of more than 7,413 acres, located just 3 to 7 miles from the Paranal Observatory.
- The European Southern Observatory officials express serious concerns about light pollution and environmental impacts, stating that the project poses a critical risk to astronomical observations.
- The European Southern Observatory advocates for relocating the Aes Andes project to prevent irreversible damage to Paranal's unique skies, emphasizing that dark skies are a natural heritage benefiting all humanity.
21 Articles
21 Articles
A New Industrial Megaproject Threatens the View of the World's Best Observatories
Astronomers have been battling threats to their clear skies on all fronts lately. One of the most notable battles, which we have reported on repeatedly, is the one against Starlink and other mega-constellations of satellites, which, while they offer high-speed internet in the most far-flung places, also disrupt observations by sensitive telescopes due to their reflectivity and fast movement speed. They also pose a global problem, whereas a more …
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…
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