Giant telescope will keep an eye on planets in other solar
systems
Elizabeth A. Thomson, News Office
December 17, 2004
MIT astrophysicists and their colleagues are excited about the
latest milestone toward developing a giant telescope that among
other things will allow direct observations of planets orbiting
stars in solar systems beyond ours.
On Dec. 13 the Carnegie Observatories of the Carnegie Institution
signed an agreement with the University of Arizona's Steward
Observatory Mirror Lab to produce the first mirror for the Giant
Magellan Telescope (GMT). The telescope will have a diameter of
about 25.4 meters or 83 feet--making it about as wide as an
eight-story building is tall.
Slated for completion in 2016 at Carnegie's Las Campanas
Observatory in Chile, the GMT will have 10 times the resolution of
the Hubble Space Telescope enabling a variety of new projects and
observations.
"At the very top of that list would be the direct observation of
exo-planets around nearby stars and observation of objects yet
younger (and therefore more distant) than the youngest objects
observable today," said Paul Schechter, the William A. M. Burden
Professor of Astrophysics, who leads the MIT group that is part of
the eight-member consortium developing the GMT.
Other members are Carnegie Observatories, Harvard University,
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, University of Arizona,
University of Michigan, University of Texas at Austin, and Texas
A&M University.
The new telescope will be composed of seven, 8.4-meter primary
mirrors arranged in a floral pattern. It builds on the successful
heritage of the two 6.5-meter Magellan telescopes, the first of
which began science operations in early 2001. "The same individuals
involved in the building of Magellan constitute the core of the GMT
design group," Schechter said.
What role do ground-based telescopes play in the era of satellite
telescopes like the Hubble? For one, said Schechter, "ground-based
telescopes can be much bigger, which is important because a
telescope's light-gathering power is proportional to the square of
its diameter. The Hubble is only 2.4 meters in diameter, and the
next-generation space telescope, which ought to be finished at
about the same time as the GMT, will be smaller than the present
Magellan telescopes."
Detailed information about the design of the GMT and the science
that it will perform is located on the web
(http://www.gmto.org/).