Giant Magellan Telescope gets green light for construction
Giant Magellan Telescope gets green light for construction
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Giant Magellan Telescope – GMTO Corporation
When finished in 2024, the Giant Magellan Telescope (whose main reflector is shown in an artists’ rendering above
will have a vision 10 times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope.
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By Daniel Clery 4 June 2015 3:45 pm
The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), the third of a trio of megatelescopes that will peer skyward next decade, yesterday received $500 million to begin construction. GMT, which will ultimately cost about $1 billion, will have a mirror 25 meters across, giving it vision 10 times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope. The funding agreement means that work can begin soon on the observatory structure at Las Campanas in northern Chile and on the instrument itself. The telescope, set to be fully operational by 2024, is backed by 11 institutions in Australia, Brazil, Chile, Korea, and the United States.
"GMT will herald the beginning of a new era in astronomy," said Wendy Freedman of the University of Chicago in Illinois and chair of the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization board of directors in a statement. "It will reveal the first objects to emit light in the universe, explore the mysteries of dark energy and dark matter, and identify potentially habitable planets in the Earth’s galactic neighborhood.”
Today’s top optical and infrared telescopes have mirrors about 10 meters across, but advances in optics mean the next generation will be much bigger. The European Southern Observatory has begun construction of its European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) with a 39-meter mirror at Cerro Armazones in northern Chile, and a group of institutions from China, India, Japan, and the United States has started building the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) at Mauna Kea in Hawaii. TMT construction was recently halted following protests by indigenous Hawaiians, and efforts are continuing to find a compromise.
The GMT, which is the smallest of the three, uses a different mirror technology. Its main reflector is made up of seven large mirrors, each one 8.4 meters across with a weight of 17 tons. The other two scopes use a segmented mirror approach, their reflectors patched together with a much larger number of hexagonal mirror tiles (798 on the E-ELT and 492 on the TMT), each one independently steerable.
More:
http://news.sciencemag.org/funding/2015/06/giant-magellan-telescope-gets-green-light-construction
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Scientists break ground in Chile on what's expected to be world's largest telescope
The Associated Press
Published Wednesday, November 11, 2015 8:12PM EST
SANTIAGO, Chile -- A groundbreaking ceremony has been held in Chile for the Giant Magellan Telescope.
Scientists and officials gathered Wednesday on a mountaintop high in the Chilean Andes cordillera for the ceremony marking the launch of construction on what is expected to be the largest telescope ever built when it is completed in 2021.
The GMT, as it's known for short, will be in the Atacama Desert. Experts say it will produce images 10 times sharper than those delivered by the Hubble Space Telescope.
It is intended to help answer questions in cosmology, astrophysics and the study of planets outside the solar system.
More:
http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/scientists-break-ground-in-chile-on-what-s-expected-to-be-world-s-largest-telescope-1.2654468
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The Giant Magellan Telescope Organization Breaks Ground in Chile
Posted on November 11, 2015
Pasadena, CA – November 11, 2015 – Leading scientists, senior officials, and supporters from an international consortium of universities and research institutions are gathering on a remote mountaintop high in the Chilean Andes today to celebrate groundbreaking for the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT). The ceremony marks the commencement of on-site construction of the telescope and its support base. The GMT is poised to become the world’s largest telescope when it begins early operations in 2021. It will produce images ten times sharper than those delivered by the Hubble Space Telescope and will address key questions in cosmology, astrophysics and the study of planets outside our solar system.
“We are thrilled to be breaking ground on the Giant Magellan Telescope site at such an exciting time for astronomy,” says Board Chair, and Director of the McDonald Observatory at the University of Texas at Austin, Dr. Taft Armandroff. “With its unprecedented size and resolving power, the Giant Magellan Telescope will allow current and future generations of astronomers to continue the journey of cosmic discovery.”
The GMT will be located at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert. Known for its clear, dark skies and outstanding astronomical image clarity, Las Campanas is one of the world’s premier locations for astronomy. Construction crews will soon be busy on the site building the roads, power, data, and other infrastructure needed to support the observatory.
The unique design of the telescope combines seven of the largest mirrors that can be manufactured, each 8.4 meters (27 feet) across, to create a single telescope effectively 25 meters or 85 feet in diameter. The giant mirrors are being developed at the University of Arizona’s Richard F. Caris Mirror Laboratory. Each mirror must be polished to an accuracy of 25 nanometers or one millionth of an inch.
More:
http://www.gmto.org/2015/11/the-giant-magellan-telescope-organization-breaks-ground-in-chile/
