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Chile’s Atacama Desert is one of the darkest places on Earth, a crown jewel for astronomers, who come from all over the world to study the origins of the universe in this inhospitable desert. Calm coast.
A rare confluence of factors makes Atacama an ideal home for some of the world’s largest ground-based astronomical projects – the dry climate, the high altitude and, crucially, isolation from the light pollution of civilisation.
“It’s a perfect cocktail for astronomy,” said Daniela Gonzalez, executive director of the Skies of Chile Foundation, a nonprofit that defends the quality of the country’s night skies.
But a group of leading scientists warned in an open letter to the Chilean government on Tuesday that this may not be the case for much longer.
A private company is pushing plans to build a massive renewable energy complex overlooking one of Earth’s most productive astronomical facilities – the Paranal Observatory, which is operated by an international consortium. European Southern ObservatoryOr that.
In the letter, 30 renowned international astronomers, including Reinhard Genzel, winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Astrophysics, who conducted much of his prize-winning research on black holes with ESO-operated telescopes in the Atacama Desert, described the project as “an imminent threat” to humanity’s ability to study the universe and unlock more of its unknowns.
“The damage will extend well beyond Chile’s borders, affecting the worldwide scientific community that depends on observations made at Paranal to study everything from the formation of planets to the early universe,” the letter reads.
“We are convinced that economic growth and scientific progress can and must co-exist in Chile for the benefit of all people, but not at the irreversible cost of one of Earth’s unique and irreplaceable windows to the universe.”
The scientists have joined the chorus of voices urging the Chilean government to relocate the hydrogen-based fuel production plant since the plan was unveiled a year ago by AES Andes, a branch of US-based multinational AES Corp.
In response to a request for comment, AES Corp. said its own technical studies showed the project would be “fully compatible” with astronomical observations and conform to the Chilean government’s strict regulations on light pollution.
“We encourage confidence in the country’s institutional strength, which has guaranteed certainty and environmental protection for many productive sectors for decades,” the company said.
The plan, which is still subject to environmental review, calls for 3,000 hectares (7,400 acres) of wind and solar farms, a desalination plant and a new port.
That means not only a big increase in light pollution, but also new dust, ground vibrations and increased atmospheric turbulence that blurs the stars and makes them twinkle. Experts say all this – from the Paranal Observatory’s high-powered telescopes just three kilometers (miles) away – will mess up the view of major astronomical targets and could hinder scientific progress.
“At the world’s best sites for astronomy, the stars do not twinkle. They are very stable, and even the smallest artificial disturbance will destroy these features,” said Andreas Köfer, ESO’s director of operations, who estimates that the AES project will increase light pollution by 35%.
“If the sky is getting brighter from artificial light all around us, we can no longer make these observations. They are lost. And, since we have the largest and most sensitive telescopes in the best places in the world, if they are lost to us, they are lost to everyone.”
While the controversy may be specific to Chile, home to 40% of the world’s astronomy infrastructure, the project reflects the broader tension between natural darkness and industrialization in countless countries as light pollution makes the night sky about 10% brighter each year.
“Major observatories have been driven to remote locations, and essentially now they have been driven to some of the last remaining dark sky locations EarthLike the Atacama Desert, the mountain peaks of Hawaii, the areas around Tucson, Arizona,” said Ruskin Hartley, executive director of DarkSky International, a Tucson-based nonprofit founded by astronomers.
“All of them are now threatened by encroaching development and mining. It’s happening everywhere.”
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Debré reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina