Santander (Spain), Aug 2 (EFE) .- The Council of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) -European Observatory of the Southern Hemisphere, in its acronym in English- has unanimously decided that Xavier Barcons will continue as general director of this organization until 2026 .
This was announced in a statement by the University of Cantabria, in which Barcons was the first director of the Institute of Physics of Cantabria.
Barcons began as manager of the National Astronomy and Astrophysics Program of the Ministry of Education and Science, to later be the architect and coordinator of Spain’s adhesion to ESO in 2006, and the country’s delegate to its Council (2007-2011).
Finally, he has held the positions of vice president and president during 2012 and 2014 of the same Board.
It was in this period that the E-ELT project, the Extremely Large Telescope, in its acronym in English, one of the scientific milestones of the last century, has been explained.
Barcons affirms that, in his new mandate, he intends to complete the construction of the telescope, which experts say will be “the world’s largest eye in the sky”, located on Cerro Armazones (Chile), and that he is expected to carry out their first observations in 2027, according to the University of Cantabria.
