Paranal Observatory is an astronomical site on the summit of Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, operated by the European Southern Observatory. The location was chosen for its extremely dry air and clear skies. It hosts the Very Large Telescope, four 8.2-meter unit telescopes named Antu, Kueyen, Melipal and Yepun, which can be used individually or combined as an interferometer, along with smaller auxiliary telescopes and the survey telescopes VISTA and VST. The observatory began scientific operations in the late 1990s and has produced results including the first direct image of an exoplanet and the tracking of stars orbiting the black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Its residence building also appeared in a James Bond film, Quantum of Solace.
Before and after
- 3 March 1999Release of GNOME
- 7 March 1999Death of Stanley Kubrick
- from 24 March 1999 to 10 June 1999NATO bombing of Yugoslavia
- from 28 March 1999 to 29 July 2025Premiere of Futurama
- 1 April 1999Founding of Paranal Observatory
- from 9 April 1999 to 10 June 1999Battle of Koshare
- 20 April 1999Columbine High School massacre
- from 21 April 1999 to 18 August 2003Second Liberian Civil War
- 1 May 1999Premiere of SpongeBob SquarePants
More in Universe & space
- 22 June 1978Discovery of Charon
- 4 March 1979Discovery of Metis
- 24 April 1990Launch of Hubble Space Telescope
- 1998Supernovae show that cosmic expansion is accelerating
- 10 April 2019The first image of a black hole
- 25 December 2021Launch of James Webb Space Telescope
The era
This moment belongs to the Contemporary world (1945 CE to today), the world since 1945. You can also browse everything in the 20th century.