Located at an altitude of 2,817 metres above sea level, with more than 340 cloudless nights per year and a remarkably stable atmosphere, the Atacama Desert is widely considered the best place in the world for conducting ground-based star observations, Poland's PAP news agency has reported.
The new facility, named the Cerro Armazones Observatory (OCA), houses five telescopes managed by the Polish Academy of Sciences' Warsaw-based Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center.
“Until now, Poland could only apply for access to the Atacama-based telescopes owned by the European Southern Observatory (ESO)," Grzegorz Pietrzyński, the head of the observatory, said during the opening ceremony on Tuesday.
“Typically, ESO provides access to telescopes for one or two nights per year, whereas now we will be able to use five telescopes year-round," he added.
It is estimated that some 30 extra scientific projects could be carried out in the coming years.
The primary research focus will be on measuring cosmic distances to better understand the physical dimensions, composition and evolution of the universe.
By determining the distances to studied celestial objects, researchers can subsequently extract information about how much energy these objects emit.
Poland and the United States are the only two countries with their own observatories in the Atacama region. While there are seven such facilities in the area, they are generally constructed and operated by large international entities.
The Atacama project is funded by Poland's Ministry of Education and Science using European funds, with around EUR 15 million provided by the European ERC Synergy scientific grant.
(mo/gs)
Source: PAP
Click on the audio player above for a report by Radio Poland's Michał Owczarek.