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by modeless 526 days ago
It's not literally the last place on Earth with dark skies. It's just one place with dark skies where they built a telescope. This isn't about protecting the sky and it's not about "progress", it's about protecting an investment of money in a telescope.

The price of launching giant telescopes to space is set to plummet in the next few years with Starship and New Glenn coming online. IMO we should be focusing on that rather than blocking development on Earth to preserve previous investments in ground based telescopes.
2 comments
phinnaeus 526 days ago
Launching telescopes is not a viable alternative to ground based telescopes. They are completely different scales. We would need large scale orbital construction facilities or a space elevator to bridge that gap. We don’t need to develop every square inch of the planet to support humanity, we don’t take up that much space.
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SiempreViernes 526 days ago
No, but it's one of three places on Earth that have dark skies this good.

The fact you don't know Paranal host many more than "one telescope" doesn't surprise me, as your are obviously very ignorant of modern astronomy.

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