The Array Sites

Capturing the particle showers from a gamma ray that hits the Earth’s atmosphere is like the classic scenario of “looking for a needle in the haystack.” In fact, the expectation for the rate of gamma rays is only one per metre squared per year from a bright source, or one per metre squared per century from a faint source

To improve our ability to capture gamma rays and to have a full view of the night sky, the CTAO will host more than 60 telescopes on two sites – one in the northern hemisphere and the other in the southern hemisphere.

CTAO’s northern hemisphere array site, CTAO-North, is located on the Spanish island of La Palma, in the Canary Islands. In the southern hemisphere, the CTAO-South array site is located in northern Chile in the Atacama Desert.