{"dataset":{"slug":"observatories","title":"Observatories","description":"Ground-based observatories.","version":"1.0.0","lastGenerated":"2026-06-29","license":"CC BY-SA 4.0","entityCount":25,"sources":["noirlab","eso","nasa"]},"entities":[{"id":"observatory:alma","name":"ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter Array)","type":"observatory","domain":"science","description":"ALMA is an international radio observatory of millimeter and submillimeter antennas located on the Chajnantor plateau in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile.","entryPath":""},{"id":"observatory:arecibo-observatory","name":"Arecibo Observatory","type":"observatory","domain":"science","description":"Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico operated a 305-metre radio dish — for decades the largest single-dish radio telescope — until its collapse in 2020.","entryPath":"/observatories/arecibo-observatory"},{"id":"observatory:cerro-tololo","name":"Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory","type":"observatory","domain":"science","description":"Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile is a NOIRLab site whose telescopes carried out the Dark Energy Survey.","entryPath":"/observatories/cerro-tololo"},{"id":"observatory:cherenkov-telescope-array","name":"Cherenkov Telescope Array","type":"observatory","domain":"science","description":"The next-generation ground-based observatory for very-high-energy gamma rays, an array of imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes being built across two sites — one in the northern hemisphere on La Palma and one in the southern hemisphere in Chile — to catch the faint blue flashes that gamma rays make in the atmosphere. The largest such observatory ever built.","entryPath":"/observatory-frontier/cherenkov-telescope-array"},{"id":"observatory:cosmic-explorer","name":"Cosmic Explorer","type":"observatory","domain":"science","description":"A proposed United States third-generation gravitational-wave observatory with arms up to forty kilometres long — a scaled-up successor to LIGO that, with the Einstein Telescope, would open the distant gravitational-wave universe.","entryPath":"/multi-messenger/cosmic-explorer"},{"id":"observatory:einstein-telescope","name":"Einstein Telescope","type":"observatory","domain":"science","description":"A proposed European third-generation gravitational-wave observatory, to be built underground in a triangle of ten-kilometre arms. Its far greater sensitivity would detect compact-binary mergers across most of the observable universe.","entryPath":"/multi-messenger/einstein-telescope"},{"id":"observatory:fast","name":"FAST (Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope)","type":"observatory","domain":"science","description":"The world's largest single-dish radio telescope, a 500-metre aperture instrument in Guizhou, China.","entryPath":""},{"id":"observatory:gemini-observatory","name":"Gemini Observatory","type":"observatory","domain":"science","description":"A pair of 8.1-metre optical/infrared telescopes, one in Hawaii and one in Chile, giving coverage of both hemispheres.","entryPath":""},{"id":"observatory:geo600","name":"GEO600","type":"observatory","domain":"science","description":"A German–British gravitational-wave detector near Hannover with 600-metre arms. Smaller than LIGO or Virgo, it works as a technology testbed — pioneering the squeezed-light and other techniques the larger detectors adopt — and observes as part of the international network.","entryPath":"/multi-messenger/geo600"},{"id":"observatory:green-bank-telescope","name":"Green Bank Telescope","type":"observatory","domain":"science","description":"The world's largest fully steerable radio telescope, a 100-metre dish in Green Bank, West Virginia.","entryPath":""},{"id":"observatory:icecube","name":"IceCube Neutrino Observatory","type":"observatory","domain":"science","description":"IceCube embeds thousands of light sensors in a cubic kilometre of Antarctic ice to detect high-energy neutrinos from the cosmos.","entryPath":"/observatories/icecube"},{"id":"observatory:kitt-peak","name":"Kitt Peak National Observatory","type":"observatory","domain":"science","description":"Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona hosts one of the largest collections of optical telescopes in the Northern Hemisphere.","entryPath":"/observatories/kitt-peak"},{"id":"observatory:la-silla-observatory","name":"La Silla Observatory","type":"observatory","domain":"science","description":"La Silla was ESO's first observatory, a pioneering site on the edge of the Atacama Desert still productive in exoplanet and survey science.","entryPath":"/observatories/la-silla-observatory"},{"id":"observatory:ligo-hanford","name":"LIGO Hanford","type":"observatory","domain":"science","description":"LIGO Hanford in Washington State is one of the two US Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory detectors that made the first direct detection of gravitational waves in 2015.","entryPath":"/observatories/ligo-hanford"},{"id":"observatory:ligo-livingston","name":"LIGO Livingston","type":"observatory","domain":"science","description":"LIGO Livingston in Louisiana is the second US LIGO detector; together with LIGO Hanford it detected the first gravitational waves from merging black holes.","entryPath":"/observatories/ligo-livingston"},{"id":"observatory:mauna-kea-observatories","name":"Mauna Kea Observatories","type":"observatory","domain":"science","description":"The Mauna Kea Observatories are a collection of independent astronomical research facilities located near the summit of Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii.","entryPath":""},{"id":"observatory:mount-wilson-observatory","name":"Mount Wilson Observatory","type":"observatory","domain":"science","description":"Mount Wilson Observatory in California is where Edwin Hubble discovered the expansion of the universe, using the 100-inch Hooker Telescope.","entryPath":"/observatories/mount-wilson-observatory"},{"id":"observatory:palomar-observatory","name":"Palomar Observatory","type":"observatory","domain":"science","description":"Palomar Observatory is an astronomical observatory in California, home to the historic 200-inch Hale Telescope.","entryPath":""},{"id":"observatory:paranal-observatory","name":"Paranal Observatory","type":"observatory","domain":"science","description":"ESO's Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert is home to the Very Large Telescope, one of the most productive ground-based facilities in astronomy.","entryPath":"/observatories/paranal-observatory"},{"id":"observatory:roque-de-los-muchachos","name":"Roque de los Muchachos Observatory","type":"observatory","domain":"science","description":"The Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma is one of the premier observing sites of the Northern Hemisphere, home to the Gran Telescopio Canarias.","entryPath":"/observatories/roque-de-los-muchachos"},{"id":"observatory:vera-rubin-observatory","name":"Vera C. Rubin Observatory","type":"observatory","domain":"science","description":"An optical survey observatory in Chile conducting the wide, fast, deep Legacy Survey of Space and Time.","entryPath":""},{"id":"observatory:very-large-array","name":"Very Large Array","type":"observatory","domain":"science","description":"The Very Large Array is a radio astronomy observatory in New Mexico consisting of 27 movable parabolic antennas arranged in a Y-shaped configuration.","entryPath":""},{"id":"observatory:very-large-telescope","name":"Very Large Telescope (VLT)","type":"observatory","domain":"science","description":"ESO's optical/infrared array of four 8.2-metre telescopes at Cerro Paranal in Chile's Atacama Desert.","entryPath":""},{"id":"observatory:virgo","name":"Virgo","type":"observatory","domain":"science","description":"Virgo is a European gravitational-wave detector near Pisa, Italy, that observes together with LIGO to localise sources on the sky.","entryPath":"/observatories/virgo"},{"id":"observatory:keck-observatory","name":"W. M. Keck Observatory","type":"observatory","domain":"science","description":"The W. M. Keck Observatory is an astronomical observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, operating two of the largest optical and infrared telescopes in the world.","entryPath":""}]}