Free Astronomy Magazine January-February 2019

19 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2019 SPACE CHRONICLES emission from the dim stars SPECU- LOOS will be targeting.” The telescopes and their brightly coloured mounts were built by the German company ASTELCO and are protected by domes made by the Italian manufacturer Gambato. The project will receive support from the two TRAPPIST 60-cm telescopes, one at ESO’s La Silla Observatory and the other in Morocco. The project will in due course also include the SPECULOOS Northern Observatory and SAINT-Ex, which are currently under construction in Tenerife, Spain, and at San Pedro Mártir, Mexico, respectively. There is also potential for an exciting future collaboration with the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), ESO’s future flagship telescope, currently under construction on Cerro Armazones. The ELT will be able to observe plan- ets detected by SPECULOOS in un- precedented detail — perhaps even analysing their atmospheres. “These new telescopes will allow us to in- vestigate nearby Earth-like worlds in the Universe in greater detail than we could have imagined only ten years ago, ” concluded Gillon. “These are tremendously exciting times for exoplanet science.” !