La Palma to host world's most powerful gamma-ray telescope complex

The Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in La Palma will inaugurate the CTAO-North on October 15, marking the transition from construction to operational status for the world's most powerful gamma-ray telescope complex. The facility features four Large-Sized Telescopes (LST) that work in a network to capture millisecond flashes of high-energy radiation.

As part of the international Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO) project, the North site specializes in lower-energy gamma rays from distant cosmic events. This complements the CTAO-South site located in Chile's Atacama Desert, which focuses on the highest energy spectrum and the center of the galaxy. The telescopes utilize Earth's atmosphere as a detection screen to observe particle cascades triggered by gamma rays from extreme phenomena such as black holes and neutron stars.

The project involves significant participation from Spanish research institutions, including the Institute of High Energy Physics (IFAE), the Canary Islands Institute of Astrophysics (IAC), and the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC).