The second science night took place in 
Göttingen on the 17th of January, 2015
The university and other research and 
educational institutes
offered a wide range of events 
from all diciplines.
Over 200 lectures, experiments and 
activities 
attracted over 19000 vistors to 
the venues scattered all over town.
The institute of astrophysics offered
LEGO enthusiasts of all ages
a chance to help with the construction
of a telescope in the scale 1:150.
The task was to built the 
European Extremely Large Telescope 
from several thousand bricks
during the event.
Over 40 LEGO builders as young as
age 6 helped out.
Each team of two built some elements
of the telescope 
out of the presorted LEGO bricks using 
a construction manual.
This will be the mount for the telescope,
so far we used around 100-250 bricks.
And this ring will sit here on top, 
and this will be the supporting structure for some of the mirrors.
One can turn this to adjust it.
We just built this part, it´s one of the supporting structures
and you can see them here in the picture.
And it will be a telescope, it will be built in South America, 
in Chile on top of a mountain. 
A computer animation of the ELT
The European Extremely Large Telescope,
ELT in short, 
is a joint project of 
15 european countries 
under the direction of the 
European Southern Observatory (ESO)
The giant telescope will be built 
within the next 10 years 
at a site in the Chilean 
Atacama desert. 
The over 3000m high mountain 
Cerro Armazones 
has been chosen as the location. 
The construction of a road 
and the leveling of the mountain top
started in mid-2014.
During the last science night, two years ago
a LEGO model was built as well.
Back then it was the ATLAS Experiment of the 
Large Hadron Collider in Geneva.
It was a great sucess and because of the 
positive experience with the young people
we had the idea to build a LEGO Model of
a giant telescope this time.
This time it´s the other extreme of the physical universe:
The particle physicists look into the smallest
parts of nature, but with our telescopes we look into the
cosmos and examine the largest structures.
The nice thing about it is that here it comes full circle:
here the particle physicists and the cosmologists
have to come together and discuss unsolved
mysteries of physics, 
like Dark Energy and Dark Matter.
At the same time we want to use the LEGO model
to promote natural sciences.
The natural sciences suffer from a drop 
in the numbers of students,
especially physcics and mathematics, 
and we want to try to enthuse young people
for natural sciences.
Once the ELT is finished in 2024,
it will be the biggest optical telescope
in the world.
The 798 joined mirror segments
are equivalent to a main mirror
of 39m in diameter.
It will be possible to observe
planets outside 
of our own solar system directly.
Scientists all over the world
hope for great advances
regarding the big questions of modern
astrophysics,
questions relating to Black Holes, 
Dark Matter, the formation of galaxies,
the Big Bang and questions regarding 
our own origin
in this gigantic universe.
Three months ago, we became aware
of a LEGO model, 
that had been developed at the 
observatory in Leiden in the Netherlands. 
We chose it because the institute of
astrophysics in Göttingen 
is a partner in the ELT project.
We are participating in the developing of 
the first light camera
for this telescope and we thought this event 
might be a good opportunity 
to publicize this telescope here in Göttingen.
The LEGO model of the ELT is on display
in the faculty of physics.
The monthly public tours through the 
institute of astrophysics
are excellent opportunities to 
see the telescope.
If the weather permits, you can also 
have a look through a night telescope
and observe objects of interest like the planets, 
the Moon or the Orion nebula.
Please visit the homepage of the institute 
for further informations 
as well as the dates of the 
public tours.
