“Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is” (Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy). So how can humankind explore the Universe, when its technology only allows for space probes to travel within the Solar System? The answer is: by observing the celestial objects with the biggest and most advanced telescopes in the world.

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) is building and operating some of the world's largest telescopes in the Atacama Desert in Chile and is constructing the world's biggest eye on the sky, the Extremely Large Telescope, there right now.

Join us in this webinar as we take you on a virtual trip to Chile to visit the ESO telescopes and learn about the work and lives of astronomers in one of the driest places on Earth. Even though the principles of how a telescope works have been known for over 400 years, there are always new challenges to be tackled and problems to be solved in the construction of ever larger telescopes. How these are tackled by ESO engineers, so that ground-based telescopes can take images almost as sharp as space telescopes, you will discover in this webinar.

We invite teachers and young learners aged 14 to 19 to attend the virtual event with their school classes or as individuals.

Credit image: P. Horálek/ESO