Astronomy & Telescopes

VLT Beyond 2030 and Call for White Papers

By Keith Cowing

Status Report

astro-ph.IM

June 26, 2026

Filed under astro-ph.IM, astronomy, exoplanet, imaging, Spectroscopy, telescope, VLT

VLT Beyond 2030 and Call for White Papers — The setting Sun dips below the horizon of the Pacific Ocean, bathing the Paranal platform in light in this amazing aerial image from the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. The Cerro Paranal mountain top is home to the world’s most advanced ground-based facility for astronomy, hosting the four 8.2-metre Unit Telescopes of the Very Large Telescope, four 1.8-metre Auxiliary Telescopes and the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) — all of which are visible in this image. The 4.1-metre Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA), also housed at Cerro Paranal, is hidden out of frame. — ESO via Wikipedia

The VLT Beyond 2030 conference gathered participants from the community and ESO experts to present and discuss science and technological ideas for the future of both the Very Large Telescope (VLT) and its interferometer (VLTI).

An effort was made to pair participants with science and engineering backgrounds so as to optimise cross-field fertilisation and initiate ‘out-of-the-main-room’ discussions.

The well-attended conference reflected the continued interest within our community in developing new projects for the VLT/I and the will to use this facility to answer key science questions that are likely to be crucial in the decades to come.

This article presents a summary of the overall points of focus during the conference and also serves as the opening of the call for White Papers with a deadline of 15 January 2027.

Proposers are encouraged to fast-forward to the years beyond 2030 to identify essential areas of research so that together we can shape a long-term roadmap for the VLT/I.

Céline Péroux, Antoine Mérand, Martyna Chruślińska

Comments: Report on the ESO workshop “VLT Beyond 2030”
Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
Cite as: arXiv:2606.25664 [astro-ph.IM] (or arXiv:2606.25664v1 [astro-ph.IM] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2606.25664
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Related DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18727/0722-6691/5422
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Submission history
From: Martyna Chruślińska
[v1] Wed, 24 Jun 2026 10:23:09 UTC (1,752 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.25664

Astrobiology, Astronomy,

Keith Cowing

Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member 🖖🏻

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