The European Southern Observatory (ESO) Industry Day in Italy 2012 was held today at the foreign ministry in Rome, and was organised in collaboration with the National Astrophysical Institute. Its purpose was the allow ESO heads to meet with participants representing over 100 Italian businesses, associations and research centres to illustrate the technological challenges and opportunities associated with the construction of the European – Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT, which will introduce enormous progress in the study of the universe. As an active sustaining member of ESO, along with Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Holland, Portugal, Czech Republic, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland, Italy recently confirmed its support for the project.
“The majority of ESO member states are in favour of the E-ELT project and I must say with satisfaction that Italy played a decisive role in its approval. Our country is entirely in favour of the construction of the highly-advanced telescope but must still adjust its own finances, which will take place over the course of the current year, in order to be able to fund it”, said Giovanni Gignami, President of INAF, who participated in the opening of the sessions along with Director General for Country Promotion Ambassador Maurizio Melani and Deputy Director General of ESO Massimo Tarenghi.
“The choice of hosting this event at the foreign ministry in Rome bears witness to our support for the E-ELT project, which we consider not only an important opportunity for affirming Europe’s world leadership in this crucial sector, but also a great opportunity for innovation and growth in many sectors of our own national industry”, asserted Ambassador Melani.
Ranked by the European Union among its highest science infrastructure priorities, the E-ELT project envisages the construction over the next ten years of a 40-metre diameter optical telescope, the largest in the world, at the top of the Serro Armazones in the Chilean Andes. An unprecedented scientific and technological challenge, whose realisation carries major opportunities for scientific development as well as for Italian businesses involved in its construction.
