The groundbreaking ceremony for the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) was held on a remote mountaintop in northern Chile on Wednesday with prominent scientists, top officials, and supporters from an international consortium of universities and research institutions in attendance. Chilean President Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria also took part in the ceremony, hosted by the 11-member consortium of the GMT.
The new astronomical facility, expected to begin its early stargazing in 2021, will be constructed on-site at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile's Atacama Desert, known for its clear, dark skies and outstanding astronomical image clarity.
The unique design of the $500-million optical marvel employs seven huge mirrors, each 8.4 meters (27.5 feet) wide, to make a single telescope with a resolving power of a telescope with a 24.5-meter primary mirror system and a collecting area equivalent to a 22-meter (72.2 ft) telescope -- about 368 square meters (3,961 square ft). "The Giant Magellan Telescope will revolutionize our view and understanding of the universe, and allow us to see and study objects whose light has been traveling for over 13 billion years to reach us.
The Giant Magellan Telescope will allow current and future generations of astronomers to continue the journey of cosmic discovery," Dr. Taft Armandroff, the board director of the McDonald Observatory at the University of Texas at Austin, said during the ceremony.
"The enormous collective scientific and technical talent in the GMT consortium will allow us to push back the frontiers of astronomy and enable future discoveries. I am delighted at this historic milestone," said Wendy Freedman, the chairperson of the GMT organization and the Carnegie Observatories director.
Are we there yet?
No.
Are we there yet?
No.
When is enough, enough?
Never.
If you build a telescope to see back 15 billion years, you would soon discover that you need to see back 18 billion years to see the beginning of time. And so on.