A window to the desert
Reflections turn the reddish ground and the blue sky upside-down on the glass panels of this window, at ESO’s Paranal Observatory Residencia. The window offers a stunning view of the Mars-like landscape which characterises this area of the Chilean Atacama Desert, one of Earth’s best windows on the Universe. The 2600-metre-high Cerro Paranal, located some 120 km south of Antofagasta in the II Region of Chile, is home to ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), the world’s most advanced optical ground-based astronomical observatory. Only some 20 km away is Cerro Armazones, the selected site for the planned Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), the world’s largest eye on the sky.
Credit:P. Zidar/ESO
About the Image
Id: | pzidar_paranal_lv-10 |
Type: | Photographic |
Release date: | 16 April 2011, 18:23 |
Size: | 4000 x 3000 px |
About the Object
Name: | Atacama Desert, Paranal |
Type: | Solar System : Planet : Feature : Surface Unspecified : Technology : Observatory : Facility |
Category: | Paranal |