The island of La Palma (Spain) will host the largest gamma-ray telescope in the world. The Cherenkov Telescope Network (CTA, its acronym in English), made 14 countries, chose Spain to host the Northern Hemisphere to house a telescope of this type, according to the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.
El Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, will be installed over 20 Cherenkov telescopes in three different sizes; larger size will be four Large Telescopes (LST), with a primary mirror 23 meters in diameter, which are being designed by a team of universities and research institutes from Japan, Italy, France, Germany, Brazil, India, Sweden and Croatia and the Spanish groups who also work at the University of Barcelona, the IFAE, CIEMAT and the Complutense University.
The network will consist of 120 Cherenkov telescopes distributed between the two hemispheres for the detection of high-energy radiation. Spain will host the North, while the European Southern Observatory in Chile, will be the southern headquarters.
The CTA captures gamma rays, the most powerful type of radiation universe. The current instruments have only succeeded in mapping the sky at 10 percent this wavelength.
This telescope will provide 10 times more accurately than current instruments and the composition of dark matter and some of the most violent objects in the universe such as black holes.
La Palma already hosts two telescopes of this kind, the Magic, and before the end of the year is expected start-up this infrastructure.
The island was chosen because of the quality of the sky, beating the other participating countries. After the decision begins negotiating with companies and institutions both selected for the construction of two observatories countries.
With information from El Mundo and El Pais of Spain *
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