Soon scientists will be able to understand the inner workings of the universe, thanks to 'Harmoni', the world's largest optical and infrared telescope which is being built in Chile.

The Extremely Large Telescope(ELT) will be completed in 2024 and will be built on top of Cerro Armazones, a 3,046-metre peak mountain in Chile. This telescope will take telescope engineering to another level as it is designed to be an adaptive telescope that has the ability to correct atmospheric turbulence.

The design and construction of its spectrograph; ‘HARMONI’ has been taken up by scientists of Oxford University. The telescope will be able to simultaneously take 4,000 images, each in a slightly different colour. The visible and near-infrared instrument is designed to provide extremely sharp images. The telescope will enable scientists to minutely study the formation and evolution of objects in the universe.

Never before seen phenomena and objects can be viewed by the telescope with unprecedented depth and precision. Scientists will also be able to see the formation and evolution of distant galaxies that have never been observed before. 

Niranjan Thatte, Principal Investigator for ‘HARMONI’ and Professor of Astrophysics at Oxford’s Department of Physics is very excited about this telescope as it carries an element of exploring the unknown. He said that the ELT will be an engineering feat, and its sheer size and light grasp will dwarf all other telescopes that have been built to date.