Mountaintop blasts for giant Magellan telescope

Last month, astronomers began to blast 8,500 cubic metres of rock from a mountaintop in the Chilean Andes to create a base for what will become the Giant Magellan Telescope, or GMT – the world's largest once completed towards the end of the decade.

The telescope will be located at the US Carnegie Institution’s Las Campanas Observatory – one of the world’s premier astronomical sites, known for its pristine conditions and clear, dark skies.

Over the next few months, more than 70 controlled blasts will clear more of the mountaintop, leaving a solid bedrock foundation for the telescope and its precision scientific instruments.

With its unprecedented capabilities, the Giant Magellan Telescope will be able to peer back to the dawn of time, witnessing the birth of the first stars, galaxies and black holes, while also exploring planetary systems similar to our own around nearby stars in the Milky Way.

It will help astronomers probe the nature of Dark Matter and Dark Energy, mysterious forms of matter and energy that allow galaxies to form while the expansion of the Universe accelerates.

The GMT is being built by a consortium of institutions from the US, South Korea and Australia, with funding from private and public sources. So far, 40% of the telescope’s ultimate US$700 million cost has been committed and fundraising is under way to secure the remaining money.

Dr Matthew Colless, director of the Australian Astronomical Observatory, said: “Astronomers from Australia, and countries around the world travel to Las Campanas to make use of its dark, clear skies that produce images as sharp as anywhere on Earth. It is fitting the world’s largest telescope be located at this superb site.”

In January, the second of GMT’s seven primary mirror segments were cast, each with a diameter of more than six metres, at the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory Mirror Laboratory. The seven mirrors, weighing 20 tons apiece, are the heart of the giant telescope and will provide nearly 400 square metres of light-gathering area.

* The GMT partner institutions are the Carnegie Institution for Science, the Australian National University, Astronomy Australia Limited, Harvard University, the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, the Smithsonian Institution, Texas A&M University, the University of Arizona, the University of Chicago and the University of Texas at Austin. More information regarding the GMT project and Las Campanas Observatory can be found at: http://www.gmto.org.