Ground-based astronomy is a research area focused on observing celestial objects and phenomena using instruments located on Earth’s surface, typically at high-altitude, low-humidity sites optimized for atmospheric transparency and stability. It encompasses optical, infrared, submillimeter, and radio observations employing telescopes, interferometers, and advanced detector arrays. Research addresses topics such as stellar and galactic structure, exoplanets, cosmology, and transient events, while contending with atmospheric turbulence, absorption, and light pollution. Adaptive optics, interferometric techniques, and sophisticated data reduction pipelines are central to mitigating atmospheric effects and enhancing spatial and spectral resolution, making ground-based facilities critical complements to space-based observatories.
MPE Director and Nobel Laureate Reinhard Genzel is spearheading an open letter signed by nearly 30 eminent international astronomers urging the Chilean government to relocate the proposed INNA industrial complex. The project ...
Astronomy
Dec 4, 2025
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Astronomers using the Subaru Telescope in Hawaiʻi have discovered a massive planet and a brown dwarf orbiting distant stars. The discoveries are the first results from OASIS (Observing Accelerators with SCExAO Imaging Survey), ...
Astronomy
Dec 4, 2025
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Chile's Atacama Desert is one of the darkest spots on Earth, a crown jewel for astronomers who flock to study the origins of the universe in this inhospitable desert along the Pacific coast.
Astronomy
Dec 3, 2025
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There's always a touch of melancholy when a chapter that has absorbed years of work comes to an end. In the case of the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), those years amount to nearly 20—and now the telescope has completed ...
Astronomy
Nov 24, 2025
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The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) celebrates 20 years of observing the sky. SALT is the largest optical telescope in the southern hemisphere. It's been steadily revealing new science knowledge, ranging from the ...
Astronomy
Nov 10, 2025
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Last week, four lasers were projected into the sky above the European Southern Observatory (ESO) Paranal site in Chile. The lasers successfully created an "artificial star" that astronomers can use to measure and then correct ...
Astronomy
Nov 10, 2025
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Earth's atmosphere is an impediment to astronomical observations. Not only is cloudy weather a problem, but temperature fluctuations in the atmosphere mean that ground-based telescopes require sophisticated adaptive optics ...
Astronomy
Nov 5, 2025
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On October 18, 2025, the 4-meter Multi-Object Spectroscopic Telescope (4MOST) facility, installed on the VISTA telescope at the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Paranal Observatory in Chile, obtained its first light. ...
Astronomy
Oct 26, 2025
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A novel imaging technique used for the first time on a ground-based telescope has helped a UCLA-led team of astronomers to achieve the sharpest-ever measurement of a star's surrounding disk, revealing previously unseen structure.
Astronomy
Oct 22, 2025
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A powerful new telescope has captured its first glimpse of the cosmos, and could transform our understanding of how stars, galaxies and black holes evolve.
Astronomy
Oct 21, 2025
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