The Giant Magellan Telescope is the most powerful telescope ever engineered using the world’s largest mirrors. A USD 205 million investment has come through from its international consortium to accelerate the construction.
The latest investment will be used to manufacture the giant 12-story telescope structure at Ingersoll Machine Tools in Illinois, to continue progress on the telescope’s seven primary mirrors at the Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab in Arizona build one of the most advanced scientific spectrograph instruments in Texas.
The investment marks one of the largest funding rounds for the telescope. It includes leading commitments from Harvard University, the Carnegie Institution for Science, the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Arizona, and the University of Chicago.
“We are honoured to receive this investment in our future,” says Robert Shelton, president of Giant Magellan Telescope. “The funding is truly a collaborative effort from our founders. It will result in the fabrication of the world’s largest mirrors, the giant telescope mount that holds and aligns them and a science instrument that will allow us to study the chemical evolution of stars and planets like never before.”
“The GMT will revolutionise our understanding of the cosmos through innovative new technology combined with a world-class site in Chile,” says Lisa Kewley, director of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, one of the founding institutions behind the telescope’s construction. “The telescope will answer some of humankind’s biggest questions about the first stars, the first galaxies, the secrets of dark matter and dark energy, and extrasolar planets suitable for life.”
“This investment will bring the telescope closer to first light and provide the world with transformational knowledge of our universe. Carnegie is proud to have kickstarted the funding effort and worked closely with our peers,” says Eric Isaacs, president of Carnegie Institution for Science.
Source: The Harvard Gazette