How Telescopes Deal With Earthquakes In Chile

Reader edgeofphysics provides a technical sidelight on the earthquake in Chile this morning — some details on how the European Southern Observatory protects the mirrors of the Very Large Telescope when an earthquake strikes. "Given that Chile is one of the most seismically active countries in the world, how do astronomers protect their giant telescopes that have been built or are being built in the Chilean Andes? This blog post discusses how Chile's most advanced facility protects its priceless 8.2-meter primary mirrors in the event of an earthquake."

Comments

Bubble Wrap?

[WrongSizeGlass]

Lots and lots of bubble wrap?

Re:Bubble Wrap?

[sopssa]

Lots and lots of bubble wrap?

Which have been all popped by the scientists.

VLEC - Very large egg cartons

[syousef]

Pity they don't protect the servers against being slashdotted.

Stuttering?

[Tablizer]

I.i.i S.s.s.e.e.e S.aa.aa.aa.ttt.uu.rr.nn!

Re:Still confused

[MichaelSmith]

Oh okay so the mirror is fixed to the structure of the telescope but the telescope is on an azimuth-altitude mount or similar and it kind of hangs from the mount so it can swing around if it needs to. Makes sense.

Re:Better than

[Chris Burke]

They thought about that, but putting a clamp-and-swing system in place for every person, and for these people to constantly remain where the clamps can grab them in case of an earthquake, turned out to be impractical.

Re:Better than

[ElectricTurtle]

If so, then that god is total dick.