Day 14: The next great telescope race

Artist's rendering of the Thirty Meter Telescope

Artist's rendering of the Giant Magellan Telescope, by Todd Mason

Two teams with United States participation are angling to build the next-generation telescope, which will peer at the very edges of the universe, into galaxies that were created immediately after the Big Bang.

And as a citizen of a country that’s learning how to tighten its belt, I’m going to suggest they get together and build just one.

The team that’s pushing the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) has a site in Chile, $130 million of the $700 million it needs, and a pioneering design that will take another two years to complete. Team members think they could complete their telescope by 2018.

The other team wants to build the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). Environmental review is ongoing at two separate sites, with final selection expected this summer, and they’ve amassed $300 million of the $1 billion they need. Their design has already been used in the W. M. Keck telescope in Hawaii. The TMT is also shooting for a completion date in 2018.

Meanwhile, European space agencies have conceptualized their own next generation telescope – the European Extremely Large Telescope. The design is in the works, and the machine is slated for completion in – you guessed it: 2018.

Each of the next generation telescopes is being designed to build on the legacy of a rash of smaller telescopes from the 1990s in California, Hawaii and Arizona. The existing telescopes have mirrors in the range of six to 10 meters (18 to 32 feet), and – while they’re making great headway in the nearby universe – they’re only able to make out the largest planets around other stars, and the most luminous distant galaxies.

The newer telescopes will be able to detect much smaller and fainter objects in the sky, opening a window to the most distant, and therefore the oldest, stars and galaxies. Formed within the first billion years of the Big Bang, such objects reveal tantalizing insight into the universe’s infancy.

The GMT will combine eight smaller mirrors to have the resolving power of a single 24.5-meter (80-foot) primary mirror, which will make it three times more powerful than any of the Earth’s existing ground-based optical telescopes. Its domestic partners include the Carnegie Institution for Science, Harvard University, the Smithsonian Institution, Texas A & M University, the University of Arizona, and the University of Texas at Austin. Although the telescope has been in the works since 2003, the formal collaboration was announced today.

The Thirty Meter Telescope will combine 492 segments to achieve the power of a single 30-meter (98-foot) mirror design.

Charles Alcock, director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, acknowledged that the two telescopes are headed toward redundancy. The main differences, he said, are in the engineering.

He said the next generation of telescopes is crucial for forward progress in 21st Century astronomy.

“The goal is to start discovering and characterizing planets that might harbor life,” he said. “It’s very clear that we’re going to need the next generation of telescopes to do that.”

And far from being a competition, the real race is to contribute to science, said Charles Blue, a TMT spokesman.

“All next generation observatories would really like to be up and running as soon as possible to meet the scientific demand,” he said.

But when I asked him why the United States teams haven’t pooled their expertise to build a single next-generation telescope, Blue declined to comment.

I’m going to guess that the University of Arizona Mirror Lab is very proud of its ability to work on the giant mirrors that are needed for the GMT, and that there’s pride-fueled rivalry between the two competing designs. Understandable. But perhaps that competitive spirit could be redirected. Pool the United States teams, and compete with Europe if you must. But between you, GMT and TMT, you’ve got the site, the money and the expertise to get the next generation to the starting line. So what are you waiting for – really?