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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday March 14 2017, @04:43PM   Printer-friendly
from the are-the-questions-about-woodchucks? dept.

Located at the Las Campanas Observatory high in the Andes mountains of northern Chile, GMT [Giant Magellan Telescope] will be the world's largest astronomical telescope. The project is being developed by an international consortium of universities and research institutions in the U.S., Australia, Brazil, and South Korea.

GMT was designed to be a segmented mirror telescope that employs seven of today's largest stiff monolith mirrors as segments. Its six off-axis 8.4-meter segments will surround a central on-axis segment, forming a single optical surface 24.5 meters in diameter with a total collecting area of 368 square meters.

GMT is expected to be operational for many decades, enabling breakthrough science ranging from studies of the first stars and galaxies in the universe to the exploration of extrasolar alien worlds. Shelton believes that GMT has the potential to even revolutionize our understanding of astronomy.

"The GMT is poised to answer some of humanity's biggest questions about the nature of exoplanets and whether we are alone in the universe, about the beginning of the universe to understand the formation and evolution of the galaxies, about the origin of the chemical elements, and how black holes grow. The biggest discoveries that will be made by the GMT, however, will be the unexpected results that revolutionize our understanding of astronomy," Shelton told Astrowatch.net.

They may or may not put Jodie Foster in charge.


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  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday March 14 2017, @06:03PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday March 14 2017, @06:03PM (#479019)

    Considering the budget and delays of both Hubble and Webb, and the short lifespan of the latter (if it doesn't blow up on the way), I can understand why the safe bet of the Atacama is the favored choice.
    It would make sense to assemble a few telescope modules on the other side of the moon, which gives most of the benefits you want except super-long exposure times (under a couple weeks), though power could be an issue when it's dark for a couple weeks.

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