European Southern Observatory
intergovernmental organization and observatory in Chile
The European Southern Observatory (ESO, officially called the European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere), is a research group for astronomy, made up of fourteen countries from Europe. Made in 1962 to give state-of-the-art facilities and a view the Southern Sky to European astronomers, it is well known for using some of the largest and most advanced telescopes in the world, such as the New Technology Telescope (NTT), the telescope that helped create active optics technology, and the VLT (Very Large Telescope), made of four 8-meter class telescopes and four 1.8-m Auxiliary Telescopes.
Formation | 1962 |
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Type | research organization for astronomy |
Membership | 14 member countries |
Website | www.eso.org |
Member countries
changeCountry | Accession |
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Belgium | 1962 |
Germany | 1962 |
France | 1962 |
Netherlands | 1962 |
Sweden | 1962 |
Denmark | 1967 |
Switzerland | 1981 |
Italy | 24 May 1982 |
Portugal | 27 June 2000 |
United Kingdom | 8 July 2002 |
Finland | 1 July 2004 |
Spain | 1 July 2006 |
Czech Republic | 1 January 2007 |
Austria | 1 July 2008 |
Poland | 28 October 2014 |
Ireland | 28 September 2018 |