Sphinx Observatory — observatory
Eric Hill from Boston, MA, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0

Sphinx Observatory

Sphinx-Observatorium

  • Elevation3,571 m
  • 2 min read
  • 46.548° N 7.985° E

Interesting facts

  • A research station on the Jungfraujoch was promised in 1894 by Adolf Guyer-Zeller as part of the concession to build the Jungfrau Railway.
  • In 1949, photographic plates exposed to cosmic rays here gave the first precise evidence for the existence of the charged K-meson.
  • The research station below opened in 1931 with lodging for 13 scientists working in meteorology, glaciology, radiation research, astronomy and medicine.
  • The astronomical dome was added only in 1950, more than a decade after the observatory itself opened.
  • Its weather station is among the highest permanently staffed in Europe, and observers still add visual cloud reports to automatic readings.
  • The observatory is reached by a lift shaft about 108 metres long; when renewed in the 1990s it was described as the fastest lift in Switzerland.
  • The building stands just inside the canton of Valais, only metres from the border with Bern, even though it is reached from the Bernese Oberland.
  • The observatory takes its name from the Sphinx, the rocky knob of the Jungfraujoch ridge on which it is built.
  • It appears on screen in Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel, the Bollywood film Krrish 3 and the Korean drama Crash Landing on You.

Why it is worth it

The Sphinx Observatory sits on a rocky spur of the Jungfraujoch, the saddle between the Jungfrau and the Mönch, at 3,571 metres above sea level — one of the highest working observatories in the world and, from a distance, a strangely modest silhouette: a squat block with a silver dome perched on a crag of snow and rock, looking over the long white sweep of the Aletsch Glacier as it flows south into Valais. It opened in 1937, reached not by a path over the ridge but from inside the mountain, through a tunnel and a lift shaft cut up through the rock from the railway station below.

The building is first of all a laboratory. It holds two large labs, a weather station, a workshop, terraces for experiments in the open air, and domes for astronomical and meteorological work, all run by the foundation that manages the High Altitude Research Stations at Jungfraujoch and Gornergrat. Thin, dry air above much of the atmosphere's water vapour makes the site valuable for measuring sunlight, atmospheric gases and aerosols: a 76-centimetre telescope has been used for solar spectrometry by the University of Liège, and the Swiss federal institute of technology in Lausanne has run laser-based LIDAR experiments here. The observatory also has a place in the history of physics — cosmic-ray studies carried out at the site in 1949 provided early precise evidence for the charged K-meson.

Around the research rooms runs a public viewing terrace, the second-highest observation deck in Switzerland, and it is this that most visitors come for. From its steel platform the Jungfrau, the Mönch and the Eiger stand close at hand, and on clear days the eye travels far down the Aletsch Glacier and out across ranges of Alpine peaks. The combination is what makes the place memorable: people looking at the view on one side of a wall, instruments quietly measuring the sky on the other.

Getting there

The observatory is reached from Jungfraujoch station, at 3,454 metres the highest railway station in Europe, by a lift up through the rock. Trains of the Jungfrau Railway climb to the station from Kleine Scheidegg, or visitors take the Eiger Express gondola from Grindelwald Terminal to the Eiger Glacier and change to the railway there; from Interlaken Ost the journey takes about an hour and a half. Thun is about 36 km away in a straight line. Bern Airport (BRN) is the closest, about 55 km off, but most travellers fly into Zurich, Basel or Geneva and continue by train to the Jungfrau Region.

Plan your visit

We have no confirmed visit data yet. Once it is confirmed, this block also carries the date it was checked.

Nearby places

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Valais 7The Most Beautiful Places in Switzerland 44The Most Remarkable Observatories 8The Greatest Engineering Wonders in Switzerland 21The Greatest Modern Engineering Wonders 26The Greatest Engineering Wonders 271

From the encyclopaedia

The Sphinx Observatory is an astronomical observatory located above the Jungfraujoch in Switzerland. It is named after the Sphinx, a rocky summit on which it is located. At 3,571 m (11,716 ft) above mean sea level, it is one of the highest observatories in the world. Accessible to the public, it is also the second highest observation deck in Switzerland. The mountain top has been tunneled to fit an elevator which ascends to the observatory from the Jungfraujoch railway station, the highest such train station in Europe. The building is located on the Valais side of the border, only a few metres from the canton of Bern, although it is accessed via the Jungfrau Railway from the Bernese Oberland.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

46.54758, 7.98546per Wikidata