4MOST telescope begins observing 77,000 stars
Oct 22, 2025
The 4MOST telescope, at the European Southern Observatory in Chile, has obtained first light. An international scientific team, led by Alberto Rebassa, a researcher at the UPC and member of the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC), and Odette Toloza, a researcher at the Federico Santa María Technical University (USM) in Chile, will observe and analyze the spectra of 77,000 binary stars
The 4MOST telescope is the largest multi-object spectroscopic study facility in the southern hemisphere, unique for its combination of large field of view, number of simultaneously observed objects and number of simultaneously recorded spectral colors. 4MOST can disentangle the light from 2,400 celestial objects simultaneously into 18,000 color components. In its first five years of operation, 4MOST will carry out 25 international scientific programs, among which the project led by Alberto Rebassa on binary stars was selected.
Currently, only a few thousand spectra of binary stars are available. The study of these systems allows us to decipher scientific unknowns such as the relationship between the age and metallicity of our galaxy, the evolution of compact binary stars or the physical and magnetic properties of stars of the same type as the Sun. This will be the objective of the research of the team led by Alberto Rebassa, researcher in the Astronomy and Astrophysics Group, professor in the Physics Department of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC) and member of the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC), and Odette Toloza, researcher at the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María (USM), in Chile.
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