Magic English 🇬🇧

​​#reading 🌀#vocabulary The World’s Biggest Eye On The Sky🔭 At Paranal in the Atacama Desert, north of Santiago in Chile, at a height of 2,635 metres, there are four VLTs (Very Large Telescopes). These are the world’s most advanced optical telescopes. Each VLT is 8.2 metres across, and weighs 200 tonnes. The telescopes work together to look into space in such detail that they could distinguish between the two headlights of a car at the distance of the Moon. This is the same as seeing objects that are four billion times fainter than the human eye can see.

The VLTs are operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO), an organisation of 15 European states, including Switzerland and the United Kingdom. But why are the telescopes in Chile and not in Europe? You could search the world, but nowhere has drier air than the Atacama desert. This is important because water in the air obscures a telescope’s vision – in the same way that fog prevents you seeing clearly. The Atacama must be the most perfect place for astronomy.

Over the last ten years the Paranal VLTs have made amazing discoveries. One is about what might be at the centre of Milky Way, the galaxy that contains our solar system. The VLTs were able to track the stars at the centre of the Milky Way.

This proved the presence of a black hole at the centre of our galaxy. Black holes are formed when a huge star dies. What is left of the star is held in by gravity, and nothing can escape. That is why we can see nothing there, and why they are called black holes. Previously scientists thought they might exist, but now there is proof.

📍Vocabulary:

🔹advanced - передовой

🔹optical - оптический

🔹to distinguish - различить

🔹a headlight - передняя фара

🔹to obscure - затмевать, делать неясным