Australia’s participation in building the world’s most powerful telescope took a giant leap forward with the announcement by the Australian Government today of $88.4 million toward the construction of the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT).
The GMT, expected to be the largest optical telescope on Earth, will detect and study planets around other suns, probe the dark matter and dark energy that controls the expansion and development of the cosmos, and unlock the secrets of star and planet formation.
The GMT project has been led in Australia by The Australian National University, which was a founding member of the project and has been active though the design and development phase. The project is an international collaboration that counts amongst its participants the Carnegie Institution for Science, Harvard University, the Smithsonian Institution, the University of Chicago, Texas A&M University, the University of Arizona and the University of Texas from Austin, and the Korean Astronomy and Space Science Institute.
The funding announced today by Senator the Hon Kim Carr, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, comprises $65 million toward the building of the telescope itself, and $23.4 million towards upgrading the telescope instrumentation capability at the ANU to design and manufacture GMT components.
ANU Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian Chubb welcomed the funding and said it was an important initiative for the University and for the nation.
“Australia must be a full partner in important international science initiatives. So much of the big infrastructure that is essential for large scale science is going to depend on consortia; and we can’t be mendicants at the table. We have to be in there, up front and vital. The Government is to be complimented for its far sighted investment keeping Australia at that table,” Professor Chubb said.
Professor Harvey Butcher, Director of the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics (RSAA) at ANU, said the GMT was the largest project that RSAA was involved in, and would ensure that ANU and Australia remained at the forefront of astronomy and its instrumentation.
“The GMT will open a new window to the universe and help answer questions that can’t be answered with today’s technology. It will be able to study cosmic objects 70 times fainter those seen by the Hubble Space Telescope, and to do so with 10 times the clarity,” Professor Butcher said.
“It will have seven giant mirrors working together to make a telescope measuring 25 metres across. Our researchers are already heavily involved in the design of the telescope, which will be located at one of the best sites in the world, Las Campanas in the Atacama Desert in the Chilean Andes.”
The RSAA is renowned for its design and manufacture of instruments for adaptive optics capable telescopes and has the capacity to build instruments for the GMT in its Advanced Instrumentation and Technology Centre on Mt Stromlo.
IMAGES of the GMT are available from: http://www.gmto.org Please acknowledge the source of images
