Planned Telescope Evokes Futures Past

When the Cerro Chajnantor Atacama Telescope is built on a mountain redoubt overlooking Chile’s vast Atacama desert, astronomers will use it to peer into the hearts of galaxies and scry the beginnings of stars. But when I see this artist’s rendering of the planned instrument, which is being developed by a team at Cornell University, I can’t help remembering the set of Woody Allen’s 1973 time-travel spoof, Sleeper.

This helps to explain how I ended up a tech blogger, instead of the astronomer my mother wanted.