CTA gamma ray telescopes to be located on the island of La Palma

The Resource Board of the CTA has voted for the Roque de los Muchachos observatory (ORM), on the island of La Palma, as the northern-hemisphere location of this great scientific facility. The CTA project involves two observatories, one in each hemisphere, each with an array of next-generation Cherenkov telescopes, to study very high-energy gamma rays. 100 telescopes are planned, 20 of which are to be in the northern hemisphere.
 
Researchers from the Department of Physics at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), the Institute of High Energy Physics (IFAE) and the Institute of Space Studies (ICE-CSIC/IEEC) are taking part in the project.
 
After months of negotiations and a meticulous assessment of the environmental conditions, scientific output, and construction and operation costs of the different candidates, the ORM came out ahead of the San Pedro Mártir observatory in Mexico, its competitor in the final round.
 
Spain will contribute 40 million euros towards construction costs, most of which will come from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). This amounts to approximately half of the total costs of this facility.
 
"The choice of the ORM to host CTA North is a tribute to the impact and the visibility of the Spanish scientific community specialising in gamma-ray astronomy", explains Manel Martínez, of the Institute for High Energy Physics (IFAE) in Barcelona and coordinator of CTA Spain. “Around 90 scientists from UCM, IFAE, IAC, UAB, ICCUB, ICE-CSIC, CIEMAT and UJA have worked intensely over the last ten years to make this dream come true. Now we will keep working, to make CTA North one of the most important science facilities in the world".
 
CTA is an initiative that involves building the next generation of Cherenkov telescopes in order to study the universe through very high-energy gamma-rays. These gamma-rays give an insight into the most violent and extreme phenomena occurring in the universe.
 
The CTA telescopes will be of 3 different sizes, the largest being the 4 Large Size Telescopes (LST), with a primary mirror of 23 metres in diameter. These are being designed by a team from universities and research institutes in Spain (University of Barcelona, IFAE, CIEMAT and the Complutense University of Madrid), Japan, Italy, France, Germany, Brazil, India, Sweden and Croatia. CTA-Spain also includes groups from the IAC, ICE-CSIC-IEEC, the UAB and the University of Jaén.
 
The first telescope will be installed next year at the ORM (La Palma), whose MAGIC telescopes, considered to be among the best in the world in this energy range, are already in operation.