Launched in 2008, the European Solar Telescope (EST) project aims to provide valuable insights into the mechanisms underlying solar flares and coronal mass ejections.

Construction on the telescope, which will be capable of monitoring ‘space weather’ events, will be supported by the University of Sheffield, which signed the deal today with EST’s Canary Foundation on behalf of the United Kingdom Universities Consortium (UKUC).

Leading the UKUC, the University of Sheffield has committed itself and the universities of Aberystwyth, Durham, Exeter, Glasgow and Queen’s University Belfast, along with a further six European countries, to the construction of the telescope at the El Roque de los Muchachos Observatory at La Palma in Spain.

The project’s conceptual design study estimates €150m to design and construct the EST and projects about €6.5m annually for its operation.

Professor Robertus von Fay-Siebenburgen, who will be a principal investigator for the project...