The Simons Observatory is located near the summit of Cerro Toco, an extinct stratovolcano located in the Atacama Desert of Northern Chile in the Andes Mountain range at an elevation of 5190 meters (17,000 feet).
Given the extreme high-elevation and stable airmass in the Atacama Desert region – considered to be the driest location on Earth – the Simons Observatory site is a premier location worldwide for probing the CMB and gathering related experimental cosmology data.
Given the extreme high-elevation and stable airmass in the Atacama Desert region – considered to be the driest location on Earth – the Simons Observatory site is a premier location worldwide for probing the CMB and gathering related experimental cosmology data.
The Simons Observatory consists of a 6 meter diameter Large Aperture Telescope, three 0.5 meter diameter Small Aperture Telescopes, all featuring cryogenically cooled optics and detectors sensitive to millimeter wavelength radiation, as well as a complement of laboratory and control room facilities.