Australia, South Korea, Chile, USA and Brazil are together in a daring project that promises to take the title of the most powerful observatory of all time from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). We are talking about the Giant Magellanic Telescope (GMT), a megastructure that will be housed at the Las Campanas Observatory, in the Atacama Desert, in 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 — that will be used to accelerate construction, which began in 2015 and is expected to of completion in 2025.
But why will this observatory be so powerful?
This mainly comes down to its size. While 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. The GMT, on the other hand, being a terrestrial telescope, does not need to deal with such restrictions.
Giant Magellanic Telescope will be more powerful than any research observatory in operation
As such, it has a 10 times larger light collection area and 400% higher spatial resolution. Compared to the legendary Hubble, the quality of the images 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-meter facility in Rockford, Illinois, designed to manufacture the telescope’s 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 prepared for the next stage of construction and foundation laying.
When 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 outer space. The seven disks will change position to reshape the array at a maximum frequency of 2,000 times per second, to allow the telescope to correct the optical blurring effect of the Earth’s atmosphere.
For now, there is no set timeline for when it will go live, but it should be by the end of this decade. The latest round of funding will help accelerate this process.
Brazil will have a guaranteed seat on the consortium board
“The equipment will allow astronomers to investigate the formation of stars and galaxies shortly after the Big Bang, measure the mass of black holes and map the immediate environment around them,” reads a statement issued by the project’s Brazilian partner, Fundação de Amparo à Research by the State of São Paulo (FAPESP), responsible for the contribution of US$ 45 million (R$ 228.4 million) in this most recent round of investments.
Its participation in the construction of the megatelescope will guarantee researchers from the state of SP 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 research in astronomy in Brazil”, says the statement.
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 power new scientific discoveries,” says the GMTO.
The GMT will be part of a new generation of so-called “extremely large telescopes”, which are ground-based and designed to provide unprecedented clarity and sensitivity in observing astrophysical phenomena – such as the origins 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 really a collaborative effort by our founders. This will result in the fabrication of the largest mirrors in the world, the array 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.”