The “Eye of God,” known as the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), is a colossal structure located at an altitude of 2,500 meters in Chile.
According to plans, by the end of this decade, the world will witness the most powerful telescope in history – the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT).
Giant Magellan Telescope. (Photo: Giantmagellan.org).
The GMT is designed to explore the unknowns of the universe. With unprecedented image quality, the seven largest mirrors in the world that comprise the GMT will enhance our view of the universe to:
- Search for Earth-like planets;
- Look for signs of life;
- Investigate the origins of the universe and decode the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy;
- Reverse time to explore the formation of the first stars, galaxies, and black holes.
Model image of the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) viewed from outside. (Photo: Giantmagellan.org).
As of September 27, 2023, after four years of construction, the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) is nearing completion of its seventh mirror, out of a total of seven mirrors that will create its 368 square meter light-collecting surface.
Interior image of the GMT during the day. (Photo: Giantmagellan.org).
Upon completion, the GMT will be the largest and most challenging optical mirror ever constructed.
Together, these mirrors will collect more light than any existing telescope, allowing humanity to unlock the secrets of the universe by providing detailed chemical analyses of celestial bodies and their origins.
Interior image of the GMT at night. (Photo: Giantmagellan.org).
“With a light-gathering power 50 million times greater than the human eye, coupled with sensitivity over 200 times greater than the best telescopes available today, the Giant Magellan Telescope will make history through future discoveries.
“We are excited to soon reach another important milestone in the construction of the GMT,” said Professor Buell Jannuzi, principal investigator for the mirror segments of the GMT and Director of the Steward Observatory, as well as Chair of Astronomy at the University of Arizona (USA).
Outstanding Features of the GMT
Global Effort: The Giant Magellan Telescope is an international project involving 13 research organizations from 6 countries, including the USA, Chile, Israel, Australia, Brazil, and South Korea.
This telescope is being built in the Atacama Desert of Chile, one of the best locations on Earth for exploring the universe.
13 organizations from 6 countries collaborating to create the “wonder” GMT. (Photo: Giantmagellan.org).
The Giant Magellan Telescope represents a leap in scale. (Photo: Giantmagellan.org).
Superior Technology: The GMT will eliminate the blurring effects caused by Earth’s atmospheric turbulence using an advanced adaptive optics system, providing resolutions 4 to 10 times greater than the best current space telescopes.
Smart Engineering: The GMT will produce the highest possible image resolution of the universe across the widest field of view with just two light-collecting surfaces.
This makes the GMT the pinnacle optical telescope among all telescopes with a diameter of 30 meters.
Cross-section of the entire GMT structure, including its casing, pillars, and telescope support. (Photo: Giantmagellan.org).
New Power: The GMT will seek out potentially habitable planets and determine whether the molecules in their atmospheres are produced by life – a capability that today’s telescopes cannot measure in visible spectra due to lack of sensitivity and resolution.
The “jewel” of the GMT will be its seven-segment mirror.
When all seven segments are in place, they will work together as a single light-collecting surface 25.4 meters wide – this diameter is equivalent to the length of an adult blue whale, according to Giantmagellan.org.
Upon completion, the mirror will have a sensitivity of up to 200 times and an image resolution four times greater than the most advanced space telescopes available today.
Staff at the University of Arizona Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab placing low-expansion Ohara E6 glass blocks into the mold to cast the fifth primary mirror segment in October 2017. (Photo: Damien Jemison/GMTO Corporation).
The process of manufacturing the GMT’s giant mirrors showcases the expertise of international professionals.
A few days ago, the Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab at the University of Arizona sealed the large spinning tank beneath the stands of the Arizona Wildcats Football Stadium at the University of Arizona, USA.
Staff at the Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab at the University of Arizona placing 20 tons of low-expansion Ohara E6 glass into the mold to cast the seventh primary mirror segment of the Giant Magellan Telescope in September 2023. (Photo: Damien Jemison/GMTO Corporation).
This unique spinning tank is containing 20 tons of the purest optical glass. It will heat the glass to 1,165 degrees Celsius, so that when melted, the glass will be pushed outward to form the curved paraboloid surface of the mirror.
With a diameter of 8.4 meters, the mirror will cool for the next 3-4 months before moving to the polishing phase, according to Space.
The spinning tank lid closed for casting the seventh primary mirror segment of the GMT at the Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab. (Photo: Damien Jemison/GMTO Corporation).
Each mirror must meet the highest quality standards, which takes time. This final mirror will take four months to cool.
Afterwards, technicians will begin grinding and polishing its surface to achieve an astronomical precision finish – perfect within one-thousandth of the width of a human hair.
The primary mirror segment being polished at the Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab at the University of Arizona in March 2018. (Photo: Damien Jemison/GMTO Corporation).
Technicians at the University of Arizona are looking at the back of the fifth primary mirror segment in April 2019. (Photo: Damien Jemison/GMTO Corporation).
By early 2024, this primary mirror will be integrated into the massive support system prototype for final optical performance testing.
This test will serve as a rehearsal for all seven primary mirrors.
View from the summit of Las Campanas at 2,500 meters (south of the Atacama Desert in Chile) – the future home of the GMT. (Photo: Giantmagellan.org).
Overall construction site viewed from above. (Photo: Giantmagellan.org).
Technicians digging foundations for the GMT support structure back in 2019. (Photo: Damien Jemison/GMTO Corporation).
Robert Shelton, the Chairman of the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), shared: “We are in a critical manufacturing phase, with most of the production taking place in the United States.”
The structure of the 39-meter telescope is also being constructed using 2,100 tons of American steel at a newly built manufacturing facility in Rockford, Illinois.
Rebecca Bernstein, the Chief Scientist of GMT, stated: “The combination of light-gathering power, efficiency, and extremely high image resolution of the GMT will enable us to make new discoveries across all fields of astronomy.”
The GMT Observatory is located at an altitude of 2,500 meters in Chile. (Photo: Giantmagellan.org).
The GMT telescope promises to unveil many mysteries of the universe for humanity. (Photo: Giantmagellan.org).
The unique combination of GMT’s outstanding features allows scientists to study planets with high spatial resolution and spectral resolution—both key to determining whether a planet has a rocky composition like Earth, whether it contains liquid water, and whether its atmosphere contains the right elements.
The GMT telescope is expected to “go hunting” by the end of this decade and will be most active in answering some of humanity’s most pressing questions: Where do we come from? Are we alone in the universe?
