Fine Structure

With all the news about this weekend's Chilean earthquake and the suffering happening in local communities, I'm surprised that there are already reports of how two of the major observatories in Chile fared.

According to the Gemini Observatory site, the Gemini South Observatory in the Chilean Andes suffered no ill effects from the shaking which was centered about 700km from the site. This was due in part to more robust earthquake preparedness after a 2006 earthquake in the region which damaged the observatory and required almost a month of fixes before the telescope was again available for viewing.

The ESO's Very Large Telescope array, consisting of four ~8m telescopes situated high in the Atacama Desert, seemed to have suffered no major damages either. The details on earthquake preparedness at VLT are quite impressive though: each 23-ton mirror is typically mounted on 150 actuators that precisely control the movement of the mirror but in the case of an earthquake, the mirrors are abruptly lifted off the actuators and secured so that no damage is incurred. There's no word from the ESO on if the shaking was intense enough at this particular location to warrant the emergency procedure.

While the telescopes functioning properly is clearly not a top priority over human life, it's good to know that some of the most impressive space observation equipment on the planet was prepared and survived the event with minimal damage.