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posted by martyb on Friday November 13 2015, @05:45AM   Printer-friendly

Groundbreaking for the Giant Magellan Telescope began with a ceremony on the clear moonless evening of November 11 at Las Campanas Observatory in central Chile.

This event marks the official start of construction for what will become the world's most powerful optical observatory in the early 2020's.[1] Ultimately the telescope will consist of seven 8.4 meter mirrors forming a single optical surface over 24 meters in diameter with a resolving power 10 times greater than the Hubble Space Telescope. The GMT will be the first of several next-generation telescopes that are essentially guaranteed to challenge our understanding of the universe.

Las Campanas, located in the southern Atacama Desert in the Chilean Andes, is one of the best places in the world for astronomy. The Giant Magellan Telescope Organization is a consortium of 11 governments, organizations, and universities.

The science case for the GMT is a drool-worthy cornucopia of astrophysics, including formation of stars and planetary systems, properties of exoplanets (including their atmospheres), chemical evolution in stellar populations, dark matter and dark energy (including synergy with the LSST), galaxy formation and evolution, and the first light and reionization of the universe. The potential for observing non-equilibrium chemistry in extrasolar planetary atmospheres is pretty darned exciting with consequences that could reach beyond astrophysics to religion, philosophy, and policy.

The future of astronomy is very bright.

[1] In addition to the 24m GMT, the Thirty Meter Telescope in Hawaii (by an International Consortium) is planned for 2022 and the European Extremely Large Telescope in Chile (by the European Southern Observatory) is planned for 2024 at 39 meters across. Also covered at Ars Technica -Ed.


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by dogvomit on Friday November 13 2015, @02:08PM

    by dogvomit (5452) on Friday November 13 2015, @02:08PM (#262636)

    I'd like to think the lack of discussion is more due to this story posting in the middle of the night than lack of interest in the future of astronomy. With three new big telescopes coming on line in the next decade, astronomy really is building excitement. I'm obviously partial to the GMT because its science case seems broader than the EELT and I'm worried TMT's problems will snowball. From the way it looks and the astronomers I've spoken with I wouldn't be surprised if TMT eventually has to move off Hawaii.

    It's a bit off topic, but here's a story from the groundbreaking ceremony. I was incredibly fortunate to be invited to this event, which concluded with one of the most memorable experiences of my life.

    Just a couple of kilometers away from the GMT site are the twin Magellan telescopes [carnegiescience.edu]. These telescopes are both 6.5 meter aperture and have a large number of instruments that astronomers can use, with fairly easy switching between instruments. Wednesday night the telescope staff did something extremely rare. They fitted the Clay telescope with an actual eyepiece and all 190 guests were allowed to look through this 6.5 meter telescope! (The president of Chile got to go first, of course.) For this event, the telescope was trained on the saturn nebula [wikipedia.org] and with this much aperture the colors were quite striking even to human eyes.

    One of the astronomers told me that the number of people who have actually looked through such a telescope doubled night before last.

    —G

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  • (Score: 2) by dx3bydt3 on Friday November 13 2015, @10:44PM

    by dx3bydt3 (82) on Friday November 13 2015, @10:44PM (#262865)

    Pure science stories in general don't tend to generate that many comments I've noticed. Perhaps it's because there are fewer people knowledgeable in the specific fields around to contribute to the discussion.
    The largest telescope I've ever looked through is only a 10" aperture. It must have been one hell of an experience to look through a 6.5m aperture scope.

    With the advancements in adaptive optics and an enormous aperture this scope, and the others you mentioned, are sure to yield some excellent advancements in our understanding of the universe.

    Upon reading of the methods for fabricating the mirrors I wonder if they had to make a spin casting setup the size of the finished aperture? That is, if they were to spin each segment independently when cast, they'd each be an independent parabola. The details on the GMT site indicate that the outer segments are highly asymmetric, implying that they'd be forming a part of the larger parabola. Grinding a mirror to 1/20 the wavelength of visible light is impressive enough on such large mirrors, but aligning the independent segments must be quite a challenge as well.