Paranal Observatory inaugurated, telescopes named

17 Jun 2002

The European Southern Observatory's Paranal Observatory in Chile was officially inaugurated in March, which included providing new names to the four Very Large Telescope unit telescopes which previously had been designated UT1 through UT4. The telescope units were renamed after Mapuche language terms for celestial objects: UT1 is now Antu (the sun), UT2 is now Kueyen (the moon), UT3 became Melipal (the Southern Cross), and UT4 was renamed Yepun (Sirius).