Plans for an enormous new telescope
in Chile took a major
step forward this week with a $50 million infusion from the University
of
Chicago to aid the observatory's construction.
The new observatory, called the Giant
Magellan Telescope,
is designed to detect objects 100 times fainter than those seen by the
Hubble
Space Telescope. The University of Chicago funds will help cover the
anticipated
$700 million cost for the telescope, which astrophysicists hope will be
able to
collect valuable data needed to make strides in understanding dark
matter and
dark energy, the project's planners said.
The Giant Magellan Telescope will
consist of six circular
mirrors, each 28 feet (8.4 meters) across, set in a flower-petal
arrangement
around a seventh central mirror to make up the GMT's main mirror.
Together,
the mirrors form the equivalent of a nearly 82-foot (24.5-meter)
telescope. The
new telescope will be built at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile,
and
should take about seven years to complete.
While the Giant Magellan Telescope
won't beat out the world's
largest telescope currently planned — the 138-foot (42-meter)
diameter European
Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) currently under construction in the
mountains
of Chile's
Atacama desert — it is still expected to be one of
Earth's
most powerful
lenses to study the heavens.
Dark matter and dark
energy are two central mysteries of modern cosmology. Though
neither has
been detected directly, scientists suspect they exist because of their
perceived affect on the rest of the matter in the universe.
By gathering more observations of the
distant universe,
astronomers hope to better understand these puzzling quantities. The
new
telescope could play a major role in that quest, scientists said.
Researchers
also plan to use the
telescope to search for alien
planets orbiting around other suns.
"This is part of the goal of looking
for Earth-like
planets around other stars that could be the sites for life," said
Edward Kolb,
chairman of the University of Chicago’s Department of Astronomy and
Astrophysics. "This is one of the new avenues that the Giant Magellan
Telescope will open, in addition to being able to look at the sky with
unprecedented resolution and light-gathering power."
The total price tag for the
instrument will be split among its
partners: the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., the
University
of Texas at Austin, Harvard University, Australian National University,
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, the University of Arizona, Texas
A&M
University, Astronomy Australia Ltd., and the Korea Astronomy and Space
Science
Institute.
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