Several of the world's most prominent next generation observatories are being planned for construction in Chile's high desert regions. The dark skies, high fraction of clear nights, and ability to acquire high-quality images make Chile an ideal location for large telescopes.

Planned observatories include:

Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array: ALMA

The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) is an international astronomy facility. ALMA is an equal partnership between Europe and North America, in cooperation with the Republic of Chile, and is funded in North America by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC), and in Europe by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and Spain. ALMA construction and operations are led on behalf of North America by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), which is managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), and on behalf of Europe by ESO.

ALMA Science:
The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) will be the forefront instrument for studying the cool universe - the relic radiation of the Big Bang, and the molecular gas and dust that constitute the very building blocks of stars, planetary systems, galaxies, and life itself. This material typically resides at temperatures of 3-100 K, resulting in spectral energy distributions peaking at submillimeter through to far-infrared wavelengths. Most of the energy in the Universe lies in two thermal components - the cosmic background and the far infrared background - whose Earth-accessible spectrum lies within the ALMA frequency coverage. Indeed, the peak of the spectral energy distribution for dusty objects in the distant universe becomes redshifted entirely to submillimeter wavelengths. While a number of current and future telescopes will operate at submillimeter wavelengths in order to exploit the wealth of information available in this part of the electromagnetic spectrum, none will have the combination of sensitivity, resolution, and frequency coverage of ALMA.

From: http://www.alma.nrao.edu/

Giant Magellan Telescope: GMT

The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT)—the product of more than a century of astronomical research and telescope-building by some of the world’s leading research institutions—will open a new window on the universe for the 21st century. Scheduled for completion around 2017, the GMT will have the resolving power of a 24.5-meter (80 foot) primary mirror—far larger than any other telescope ever built. It will answer many of the questions at the forefront of astrophysics today and will pose new and unanticipated riddles for future generations of astronomers. ...The GMT project is currently focused on sites in central and northern Chile.

GMT Science:
The GMT will produce images up to 10 times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope.
Presently we are able to detect planets only by indirect means. The GMT will allow us to make images of planets around nearby stars and, possibly, discern their chemical compositions. Designed with high contrast imaging in mind, the GMT will have the ability to detect faint terrestrial-like planets in the presence of enormous glares from their parent stars. ...[Likewise,] the GMT, operating with adaptive optics to achieve its maximum resolving power, can probe the centers of distant galaxies in unprecedented detail.

Current ground-based telescopes cannot probe supernovae to sufficient distances to provide a definitive test of competing models of the Dark Energy. The GMT will allow us to observe Supernovae to the highest redshifts and will aid in the full characterization of the expansion history of the Universe.

From: http://www.gmto.org/