Hosted by the European Southern Observatory (ESO)  of Paranal  in the Atacama Desert  of Chile, SPECULOOS-South is composed of four robotic telescopes in operation since January 2019.

Observatoire SPECULOOS1

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heir names are Io, Europa, Ganymede,  and  Callisto, from the names of the Galilean moons of Jupiter. Each telescope has a primary mirror of 1m diameter and is equipped with an astronomical camera highly sensitive in the very-near-infrared’ (up to ~0.9 microns).

SPECULOOS-South is operated by a consortium including the Universities of Liège, Cambridge, and Birmingham.

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Stars wheel over SPECULOOS

At the SPECULOOS Southern Observatory , four planet-hunting telescopes stare out into the galaxy, searching for worlds with the potential to harbour life. Nearby, the laser guide stars of ESO's Very Large Telescope pierce the night sky.

 

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updated on 4/19/23

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