A team of 12 Portuguese researchers will install a remotely operated solar telescope in the Chilean desert that will allow high-resolution observations of Portugal.
“It’s almost as if it were a robot”, explained physical engineer Alexandre Cabral, from the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon. “It may be necessary to go there once a year to program something, but the observations will be controlled from Portugal,” he told Lusa.
The group, formed by specialists from the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences, with members from the universities of Lisbon and Porto, embarks on Saturday for the Paranal Observatoryin the Atacama Desert, where for three weeks the new telescope will be installed, presented as an instrument with an unprecedented level of detail.
The equipment, called PoET (Paranal solar ESPRESSO Telescope) was built in part in the Science laboratories of the University of Lisbon. “Things were tested in Portugal, part of the structure was manufactured in Italy”, revealed the same source.
Scientists hope that the telescope will begin collecting the first data on April 8 and that it could contribute to a better understanding of what happens in the stars, as well as in exoplanets and Earth-like star systems.
“We will get to know our sun better and we will be able to study some exoplanets better”, said Alexandre Cabral, who will be part of the mission. According to the researcher, more than discovering new exoplanets, the team hopes to be able to obtain more information about existing ones.
“At this moment, close to 6,000 exoplanets have been detected in our galaxy. What we want now is not so much to discover more, it is to study those that are most similar to Earth, where life is more likely to exist.”.
The telescope developed in Portugal will be installed at 2,600 meters altitudein one of the largest observatories, in terms of astronomy. According to the researcher, all other telescopes at the Paranal Observatory are prepared to observe galaxies and stars at night.
“It is very difficult to understand some things that happen in the stars, because there is a lot of noise caused by the planet itself. Basically, it is almost use the sun as a guinea pig of other stars”, he added, when describing the instrument’s functions.
“We will get to know our sun better and we will be able to better study some exoplanets. All these developments are always one step forward in what already exists. Later, it always brings a lot of results,” said the engineer.
The researcher added that this will be the only telescope capable of observing sunlight with such precision. “Right now there is no instrument with the capacity to do the same.”
Alexandre Cabral exemplified that the development of many cell phone cameras began with astronomy, with the investment made for sensors in astronomy, which became everyday technology.
