The first four large telescopes at the CTAO Observatory were inaugurated in the Canary Islands

21 octobre 2026 The first four large telescopes at the CTAO Observatory were inaugurated in the Canary Islands

Four large telescopes (LST, 23 meters in diameter) at the CTAO international observatory have just been inaugurated on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands. They mark a new phase in the exploration of the highest-energy phenomena in the universe.

CTAO will be the world’s most sensitive very-high-energy gamma-ray observatory, designed in particular to study extreme astrophysical phenomena (supernovae, supermassive black holes) and to answer questions in fundamental physics, such as the origin of dark matter. These are scientific questions that are of the utmost interest to researchers at LUX !

LUX’s Role in CTA

25 countries contribute to CTAO, with more than 150 institutes worldwide. Among them, the Paris Observatory - PSL is a member of the consortium.

One of the LSTs. Credit Tomohiro Inada.

Teams from LUX and UNIDIA (UNité d’Ingénierie et de Développements Instrumentaux pour l’Astrophysique) are heavily involved in CTAO :

  • in preparing for the archiving and distribution of high-level data,
  • in developing analysis software,
  • as well as in the design and construction of small telescopes (SST, 4m). Since 2015, the Paris Observatory - PSL has housed on its Meudon campus the French prototype of a small “Schwarzschild-Couder” telescope, which it developed based on a pioneering technological concept. 

The contract covers the supply of 12 electromechanical structures for the SSTs, and the contract for the supply of these 12 structures was awarded in September 2025. The first SST under this contract will be shipped to CTAO’s southern site in Chile in 2027.
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