The World's Most Powerful Telescopes (2018) Movie Script
- [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 VLand 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)
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 VLand 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)