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Construction Begins On $1 Billion Telescope That Will Take Pictures 10 Times Sharper Than Hubble's (qz.com)

The $1 billion Giant Magellan Telescope in Chile is officially under construction with a scheduled date of operation in 2024. The telescope "will have an array of seven enormous mirrors totaling 80 feet in diameter, giving it 10 times the precision of the Hubble telescope," reports Quartz. "Among its advances is technology to help it correct for the distorting effect of Earth's atmosphere by using software to make hundreds of adjustments per second to its array of secondary mirrors." From the report: The project's architects, a consortium of universities and institutions in the U.S., Korea, and Australia, chose to build in Chile's Atacama desert for its clear, dry skies. Astronomers will use the Magellan Telescope to study the origins of elements and the birth of stars and galaxies, and to examine planets that have been identified as potentially harboring life. Mother Nature Network has an article highlighting nine of the largest new telescopes expected to begin operation in the next decade.

4 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. Re:South of the wall? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Stop the American refugees from fleeing south to freedom you mean.

  2. It's not the size of your telescope, by Snufu · · Score: 5, Funny

    it's how you use... No. It's pretty much the size of your telescope.

  3. This time part of the $1 Billion is paying for... by magusxxx · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...Windex, right?

    --
    Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
  4. Re:A billion?? by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 4, Funny

    A billion for a telescope??

    But, think of how many diversity training classes you could hold, with that kind of money?

    Think of how many women and Eskimos you could teach to code?

    How many "sustainable" things you could, er, sustain with all those external funds??

    Priorities, people!!

    Boy, you try to speak up for marginalized and underrepresented populations, and what do you get ... modded to oblivion by the shills of the Telescope Industrial Complex.