After dragging its feet for years, the UK is joining the European Southern Observatory in July. The move will give the country’s astronomers access to the Very Large Telescope (VLT) and ESO’s other facilities in Chile (see Physics Today, Physics Today 0031-9228 53 9 2000 55 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1325233 September 2000, page 55 ). The UK will be ESO’s 10th member state.
Joining ESO also assures UK astronomers a role in planning the 100-meter Overwhelmingly Large Telescope and other future projects that are too costly for the country to afford alone.
“This is fantastic news for Britain. It’s like Christmas,” says Richard Ellis, a former director of the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy who is now at Caltech. British astronomy had slipped since its peak in the 1970s and 1980s, when it commanded about 15% of the world’s 4-meter telescopes. The UK currently has the equivalent of half an 8-meter telescope—one-quarter...
