Excavation works have started as part of the construction for the Giant Magellan Telescope, which, true to its name, will be a massive structure in the Atacama Desert of Chile.
The Giant Magellan Telescope has been in the works for a while now, with its international backers providing approval for its funding in June 2015 and construction of one of the world's biggest telescopes starting in November of the same year.
Excavation Works Started For Giant Magellan Telescope
The Giant Magellan Telescope will be 24.5 meters in diameter and will consist of seven mirrors that are each 8.4 meters long. The mirrors will be arranged in a honeycomb shape on top of a concrete platform that will be inside a rotating enclosure 63 meters tall. The massive telescope will also be high up in the Atacama Desert, at an altitude of 2,514 meters on the Las Companas peak.
To proceed with the construction of the Giant Magellan Telescope, workers have started to dig out rock to make way for its foundation. Engineers will use hydraulic drills and hammers and are expected to haul away 13,300 tons of rock from the site. To put that in perspective, that is the equivalent of about 330 dump trucks that are loaded with debris.
"With the start of construction of the permanent buildings on the site, the GMT is showing tangible progress towards completion," said project Manager James Fanson.
Five of the Giant Magellan Telescope's mirrors have already been cast at the University of Arizona's Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab.
What Will The Giant Magellan Telescope Offer?
The Giant Magellan Telescope will observe optical and infrared wavelengths of light. It will feature special adaptive optics for the removal of blurring due to the atmosphere, allowing the telescope to view things far away from Earth, such as galaxies from the first billion years of the existence of the universe. Scientists will also be able to use the Giant Magellan Telescope to take images of exoplanets that are surrounding other stars and figure out the kinds of molecules that are in their atmosphere.
The Giant Magellan Telescope will also have better resolution compared to the Hubble Space Telescope, with its unique design to provide images that are 10 times sharper in the infrared region of the spectrum.
Scientists who want to reserve time to use the Giant Magellan Telescope will need to write proposals, which will then undergo review by a selection committee. There is a lot of time to prepare the proposals, though, as first light for the telescope is not expected until 2024.
