Chile's Giant Magellan Telescope construction underwayNovember 13, 2015 - 12:06 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - A groundbreaking ceremony on top of a mountain in the Chilean Andes on Wednesday, November 11, has signaled the beginning of Giant Magellan Telescope's construction, Engadget reports. Three years after blowing up the peak where the structure will be built, the GMT Organization's Board of Directors has finally given its builders the go-signal. It can afford to do so now that the US, Australia, Brazil and Korea have committed $500 million to the project. According to Ars Technica, bulldozers have moved in to level a road that goes up to GMT's location at Carnegie Institution's Las Campanas Observatory -- which also serves as home to other telescopes, including the smaller Magellans -- as soon as the ceremony was done. The Giant Magellan's main mirror will be 80 feet in diameter and made up of seven primary segments. One's already been polished to an accuracy of one millionth of an inch, and the next three are already in progress. The organization hopes to begin using the telescope with those four mirrors as soon as 2021. GMT is merely one of the new breed of supersized telescopes being built here on Earth, and just like Europe's Extremely Large Telescope and Hawaii's Thirty-Meter Telescope, it will be able to peer deeper into space, helping astronomers solve its mysteries. Top stories Yerevan will host the 2024 edition of the World Congress On Information Technology (WCIT). Rustam Badasyan said due to the lack of such regulation, the state budget is deprived of VAT revenues. Krisp’s smart noise suppression tech silences ambient sounds and isolates your voice for calls. Gurgen Khachatryan claimed that the "illegalities have been taking place in 2020." Partner news Most popular in the section | Lemkin Institute petition seeks release of Armenians in Azerbaijan The Lemkin Institute is deeply concerned about the continued illegal detention of political prisoners from Karabakh in Azerbaijan. Armenian Catholicos calls for national unity against threats Karekin II issued a message on Republic Day marking the anniversary of the First Armenian Republic. Pashinyan: Armenia’s desired goal is “on the horizon” Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has said that Armenia is moving forward “without interruption”. Opposition leader, supporters spend night at Sardarapat memorial Police made nearly 300 arrests the day before as Galstanyan and his supporters continued to demonstrate in Yerevan. |