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10 Nov 2005
A project team in Canada reveals a 10 year plan to build the world's largest optical telescope.
Engineering specialist AMEC has announced a USD $750 million project to build a ground-based telescope that can probe up to 100 times further into space than current facilities. Operating over the 0.3 to 30 micron wavelength range, astronomers plan to use the giant facility to study the physical processes involved in star and planet formation.
Measuring 30 m in diameter and featuring 780 mirrors placed side-by-side, the TMT (Thirty Metre Telescope) will have a collecting area nine times larger than today's biggest telescopes, allowing scientists to image extremely faint objects. With plans including a system of adaptive optics, the TMT's spatial resolution is expected to be more than twelve times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope.
Funding for the project is being provided by an international consortium of universities and research insitutes. "The TMT will have 25% support from the Canadian government funnelled through the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy," John Kageorge of AMEC told Optics.org. "It is anticipated that AMEC will design and fabricate the structure of the telescope and its enclosure."
Although a site for the stadium-sized observatory has yet to be selected, construction is scheduled from 2008 onwards, with first light planned for April 2014. The timing means that the TMT will be ready in time to partner the James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble's successor, due for launch in 2011.
Looking further ahead, engineers hope that the TMT could help realize telescopes up to 100 m in diameter, such as the Overwhelmingly Large telescope (OWL).
Author
James Tyrrell is reporter on Optics.org and Opto & Laser Europe magazine.
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