BlackGEM Telescope in Chile: Observing gravitational waves | ESO
The strange object that appears beneath a starry sky in this picture is a BlackGEM telescope—one of three hosted by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) at its La Silla Observatory. BlackGEM is a joint project with institutes in the Netherlands and in Belgium. The telescopes can be remotely controlled from Radboud University.
Powerful events like neutron star and black hole mergers send ripples through space and time known as gravitational waves. Observatories like the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and Virgo interferometer were built to detect these ripples, but struggle to locate the precise origin. The BlackGEM telescopes aim to detect the optical counterpart of gravitational wave detections. A merger of two black holes is almost invisible. However, if at least one of the two objects is a neutron star, not all the material vanishes into the black hole resulting from the merger. This material heats up and produces faint optical light that can be detected with telescopes like BlackGEM.
The design of BlackGEM allows for fast observation when an event like this occurs. Once they pinpoint the source, larger telescopes like ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) can follow up for more detailed observations.
https://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/lasilla/blackgem/
Image Description: The image shows a strangely shaped telescope in the desert: a spherical dome mounted on a tower supported by several legs. Above the telescope, the Milky Way is visible in the starry sky.
Release Date: Oct. 19, 2026
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