These days it takes a generation to build a great astronomical
observatory. A new one is taking shape in the Atacama Desert.

LAS CAMPANAS OBSERVATORY, Chile -- To walk among the observatory domes
of the Atacama Desert is to brush your hair with the stars.

The Atacama, on a plateau high in the Chilean Andes, is one of the
driest and darkest places in the world. During the day one can see to
Bolivia, far to the east, where clouds billow into thunderstorms that
will never moisten this region. At night, calm, unruffled winds off
the Pacific Ocean produce some of the most exquisite stargazing
conditions on Earth.

One evening in late January the sky was so thick with stars that the
bones of the constellations blurred into the background. The Milky
Way, our home galaxy, was rolling straight overhead, and the Large and
Small Magellanic Clouds, satellite galaxies of our own, floated
alongside like ghosts. The Southern Cross, that icon of adventure and
romance, loomed unmistakably above the southern horizon.
...
...
The Carnegie Institution is a founder of and a driving force behind a consortium of 13 universities and institutions that aims to build the
Giant Magellan Telescope, or G.M.T., a multibillion-dollar instrument
more powerful than any existing ground-based telescope.

When completed, the telescope will have seven mirrors, each eight
meters in diameter, that together will act as a 22-meter-diameter
telescope, roughly 20 times as powerful as Palomar. The G.M.T. will be
built at the top of Cerro Las Campanas, two miles from the domes of
the Carnegie's existing telescopes.


https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/science/astronomy-telescopes-magellan-chile.html

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