Free Astronomy Magazine September-October 2024

39 ASTRO PUBLISHING ators able to position the segment to nanometric precision; and Danish company DSV, which is in charge of transporting the segments to Chile. Once polished and assembled, each M1 segment is shipped across the ocean to reach the ELT Technical Fa- cility at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert — a 10,000-kilo- metre journey that over 70 M1 seg- ments have already completed. In Paranal, only a few kilometres away Also involved in the work done on the M1 segment assemblies are: Dutch company VDL ETG Projects BV, which is producing the segment sup- ports; the German-French FAMES consortium, which has developed and is finalising manufacturing for the 4500 nanometric-accuracy sensors monitoring the relative position of each segment; German company Physik Instrumente, which designed and is manufacturing the 2500 actu- from the construction site of the ELT, each segment is coated with a silver layer to become reflective, after which it will be carefully stored until the telescope’s main structure is ready to receive them. When it starts operating later this decade, ESO’s ELT will be the world’s largest eye on the sky. It will tackle the biggest astronomical challenges of our time and make as-yet unimag- inable discoveries. ! T he 949 th segment is seen in this image before being cut into its hexagonal shape and polished — steps that will be performed by French company Safran Reosc. [SCHOTT]