Australia, South Korea, Chile, the United States and Brazil are together in a bold project that promises to take the title of the most powerful observatory of all time from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). This is the Giant Magellanic Telescope (GMT), a megastructure that will be hosted at the Las Campanas Observatory, in the Atacama Desert, Chile.
According to the Giant Magellanic Telescope Organization (GMTO), the program has just secured a new infusion of $ 205 million in funding – out of a total of $ 1 billion – which will be used to accelerate construction, which began in 2015 and is expected to complete. in 2025.
But why will this observatory be so powerful?
This mainly depends on its size. Although Webb occupies a privileged position in the solar system, the fact that it is a space telescope has imposed limits on its measurements and mass. On the other hand, the GMT, being a terrestrial telescope, does not need to deal with such restrictions.
As such, it has a 10x larger light-gathering area and 400% higher spatial resolution. Compared to the legendary Hubble, the image quality will be up to 100 times higher. In short: GMT will be more powerful than any research telescope currently in operation, both in space and on the ground.
According to the GMTO, construction of a 40,000-square-foot facility in Rockford, Illinois, designed to produce the telescope structure, is complete. In addition, production of the telescope’s first adaptive secondary mirror is underway in France and Italy, and the site in Chile is ready for the next phase of construction and foundation laying.
Once completed, the GMT will feature seven primary mirrors, each 8.4 meters in diameter, arranged in a 25.4-meter-wide array that will produce the most detailed images ever captured from space. The seven disks will shift position to reshape the array at a rate of up to 2,000 times per second, to allow the telescope to correct for the optical blur effect of Earth’s atmosphere.
For now, there’s no set timeline for when it will air, but it should be by the end of this decade. The latest funding round will help speed up this process.
“The equipment will allow astronomers to study the formation of stars and galaxies shortly after the Big Bang, measure the mass of black holes and map their surroundings,” reads a statement released by the project’s Brazilian partner, Fundação de Amparo. à Research from the State of Sao Paulo (FAPESP), responsible for the contribution of 45 million US dollars (228.4 million R $) in this latest round of investments.
His participation in the construction of the megatelescope will grant SP state researchers a portion of the GMT observation time. In addition, Brazil will be entitled to a seat on the consortium board. “This will be very important for the development of astronomy research in Brazil,” the statement said.
With a total light-gathering area of 368 square meters, the entire device will be kept in a 65-meter, 4,000-ton cabinet, which can perform a full rotation in about three minutes.
“This unprecedented angular arrangement, combined with revolutionary spectrographs and high-contrast cameras, will work in direct synergy with the JWST to fuel new scientific discoveries,” says the GMTO.
The GMT will be part of a new generation of so-called “extremely large telescopes”, which are grounded and designed to provide unprecedented clarity and sensitivity in the observation of astrophysical phenomena, such as the origin of chemical elements and the formation of the first stars and galaxies.
In addition to FAPESP, the new investment includes commitments from the Carnegie Institute of Science, Harvard University, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Arizona and the University of Chicago.
“We are honored to receive this investment in our future,” said Robert Shelton, president of the Giant Magellanic Telescope. “Funding is truly a collaborative effort from our founders. This will involve the manufacture of the largest mirrors in the world, the series of giant telescopes that hold and align them, and a scientific instrument that will allow us to study the chemical evolution of stars and planets like never before. “
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