Text: Elton Alisson, Agência FAPESP.
The Giant Magellanic Telescope (GMT) will receive a new investment of US$205 million from an international consortium of institutions involved in the project to speed up construction.
The investment represents one of the telescope’s largest funding rounds and will involve FAPESP, the Carnegie Institute of Science and the universities of Harvard, Chicago, Texas in Austin and Arizona, in the United States, GMT said. USA.
The resources that the six organizations have pledged will be used to advance the design of the telescope’s steel structure, in addition to seven primary mirrors and one of the most advanced spectrographs that scatters light with very high color fidelity. part of the scientific instrumentation of GMT.
“The funding will lead to the manufacture of the world’s largest mirrors, the assembly of a giant telescope and a scientific instrument that will allow us to study the chemical evolution of stars and planets like never before,” said Robert Shelton, president of GMT. .
FAPESP is investing US$45 million to build the megatelescope as part of a special project coordinated by Laertes Sodre Jr., Professor at the Institute of Astronomy, Geophysics and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of São Paulo (IAG-USP).
The funding guarantees Brazilian researchers a predetermined amount of time to use the telescope to develop research.
“We are making outstanding progress in the development of GMT instruments. At the moment, the system engineering area of the project is our responsibility,” says Saudre Junior.
New generation telescopes.
The GMT is being built at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert and will be part of a new generation of so-called “extremely large telescopes” ground-based and designed to provide unprecedented clarity and sensitivity in observing astrophysical phenomena. – such as the origin of chemical elements and the formation of the first stars and galaxies.
The GMT design will combine seven 8.4-meter-diameter mirrors to create a single 25-meter-diameter telescope capable of producing the most detailed images of the universe ever made.
The mega-telescope will have ten times the luminosity and four times the spatial resolution of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), launched into space in late 2021 and whose first images began to be published in recent weeks. In addition, it will be 200 times more powerful than current research telescopes.
This unprecedented angular resolution, combined with revolutionary spectrographs and high-contrast cameras, will work directly with JWST to enable new scientific discoveries.
The idea is that GMT will allow him to take the next step in studying the physics and chemistry of the faintest light sources in space that JWST identifies. This includes searching for life in the atmospheres of potentially habitable planets, studying the first galaxies to form in the universe, and searching for clues that will unlock the mysteries of dark matter, dark energy, black holes, and the formation of the universe itself.
“We work with some of the brightest engineers and scientists at the world’s leading research institutions,” said Walter Massey, GMT chairman and former director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and president of Bank of America.
“The recent contribution of our investment partners to the Giant Magellanic Telescope is collectively pushing the boundaries of astronomy, making the future a reality, and enabling us to tackle some important scientific challenges,” he said.
GMT has already made significant progress in construction in recent years. Six of the seven main mirror segments were launched in Tucson, Arizona. The third segment of the primary mirror has completed a two-year polishing phase and is undergoing final testing. In addition, the construction of a plant for the manufacture of the telescope structure has been completed, the first adaptive secondary mirror of the telescope is being manufactured in France and Italy, and the site in Chile is being prepared for the next stage of construction and laying the foundation.
This new $205 million investment round positions the Giant Magellan Telescope as one of the first next-generation super-large telescopes to be built, the project said. First light – the name given to the first images taken with a telescope – is scheduled for the end of this decade.
“The six founders of Giant Magellan Telescope worked together to bridge the financial gap between the resources we raise to build the telescope and what is needed to complete it,” said Eric Isaacs, president of the Carnegie Institution of Science.
“This investment will bring the telescope closer to the first light and provide the world with transformative knowledge about our universe. Carnegie is proud to have spearheaded the funding effort and worked closely with our colleagues.”