General Description
The CTAO (Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory) will be the world's largest and most sensitive observatory for gamma-ray astronomy. With more than 60 telescopes located in the northern and southern hemispheres, the CTAO will explore the very high-energy Universe with a broad energy range (20 GeV - 300 TeV) and unprecedented accuracy.
The gamma rays that the CTAO will detect interact with the Earth's atmosphere in producing cascades of subatomic particles and a blue flash called Cherenkov light. By analysing this data, scientists can reconstruct the properties of individual gamma rays, such as their energy and arrival direction, and use it to study the cosmic sources and their physical mechanisms.
Since high-energy gamma rays are extremely rare, the CTAO will maximise its coverage with 64 telescopes in the Alpha configuration split between its two array sites:
• CTAO-North in the northern hemisphere at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias' Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in La Palma, Spain.
• The CTAO-South in the southern hemisphere at the European Soutehrn Observatory's Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert in Chile.
The CTAO Science Data Management Centre located on the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron campus in Zeuthen, Germany, coordinates the processing and long-term preservation of data and provides support and data services for the Observatory. Moreover the CTAO Headquarters, located in Bologna, Italy, and hosted by the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, provides project, science, technical and administration management.
The CTAO was included in the 2008 roadmap of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) and promoted to a Landmark project in 2018. It is one of the "Magnificent Seven" of ASPERA's European strategy for astroparticle physics and a top ranked priority amongst new ground-based infrastructure projects in the Strategic Plan for European Astronomy 2022-2035.
Founding year: 2025 Founding members (8): Austria, Czech republic, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Croatia
Subsequent members : ESO
Budget Construction Phase 2022-2028: ~350 MEUR
Swiss financial contribution: ~8 MEUR period 2022- 2028
Swiss research institutions involved: UNI GE, BE and ZH.
Procurements
Procurement is restricted to legal entities established in the CTAO member countries.
The CTAO Observatory Procurement webpage announces on going procurements.
