Carnegie Commits to Giant Magellan Telescope Construction

Washington, D.C. At its annual May meeting, the Carnegie Institution for Science board of trustees enthusiastically endorsed the construction of the proposed Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT). The GMT will be the first in the next generation of astronomical observatories that will drive new scientific discoveries. The Carnegie board authorized President Richard A. Meserve to state the institution’s commitment of $59.2 million for the design, construction, and commissioning of the telescope to supplement the $19.9 million that Carnegie has already committed to the project.

The GMT will be built at Carnegie’s Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, and will be operated by a consortium of institutions from the United States, South Korea, and Australia. Larger and more powerful than any previous optical telescope, it will have ten times the light-gathering power of current ground-based telescopes, and will produce images 10 times sharper than those from the Hubble Space Telescope. The GMT will use the latest in Adaptive Optics technology to remove blurring caused by the Earth’s atmosphere to produce images with unprecedented sensitivity and clarity.
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I can't wait for this to come about. I personally love space pictures, all of them and can only imagine the pictures this one will produce.

I'm gonna have a monster folder of amazing space pictures soon, I'm sure. Unfortunately this thing is gonna cost a lot, but I suppose there's a fee to such tasks.

Maybe they will finally be able to zoom in on the moon and mars to
reveal all those things that have been posted on ATS claiming to show
buildings, animals, smokestacks, bunkers, etc. Ten times the light gathering
capability and ten times the clarity. Can't wait to be able and see all of
those mysterious structures that are claimed.

[edit on 13-5-2010 by endtimer]