The Mid-Infrared ELT Imager and Spectrograph, METIS, has officially passed its Preliminary Design Review for the European Southern Observatory 39 meter Extremely Large Telescope.  The University of Michigan Department of Astronomy is participating in this instrument consortium with our international partners, and will participate in the Science Team to use the instrument when it is commissioned, planned for 2028.  The IRIS Lab, part of the FEPS Research Group efforts, is helping to assess the Geosnap detector for use in METIS.  We look forward to working with the METIS Team, and the rest of the Department of Astronomy to help METIS make amazing discoveries in the future.

The Cerro Armazones mountain in the Chilean desert, near ESO’s Paranal Observatory, will be the site for the European Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), which, with its 39-metre diameter mirror, will be the world’s biggest eye on the sky. Here, an artist’s rendering shows how the telescope will look on the mountain when it is complete.