It is a scientific facility that will include more than 20 Cherenkov telescopes , located specifically at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, on the island of La Palma. This has been decided by the 14 countries responsible for the project to build the Cherenkov Telescope Network. But why has La Palma been chosen?
According to those responsible for the project, the quality of the sky in the Islands and their research career have been taken into account to support the Spanish candidacy, which was competing against the Mexican one .
These telescopes will have three different sizes. The largest will be the four Large Size Telescopes with a primary mirror of about 23 meters in diameter, designed by universities and research institutes from Japan, Italy, France, Germany, Brazil, India, Sweden and Croatia, supported by Spanish groups from the University of Barcelona, IFAE, CIEMAT and Complutense University.
The network, for which some 70 million euros have been invested, will consist of 120 Cherenkov telescopes distributed between the two hemispheres , with the aim of detecting high-energy radiation. Spain will be the North headquarters; Chile will carry out the same mission, with the South headquarters.
Image: CIEMAT
