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The Thirty Meter Telescope Is Finally Getting Built

Canada is finally on board with the mission to build one of the most powerful telescopes in the world.
Artist's rendition of the TMT site atop Muana Kea in Hawaii. ​Image: TMT International Observatory

​Canada is notorious for its sometimes backwards approach to scientific study—in particular, its muzzling of climate scientists. Today, however, the Harper government did some good: after a year-long delay, Canada has committed $243.5 million to build a giant telescope observatory in Hawaii.

The Thirty Meter Telescope, or TMT, will cost an estimated $1.5 billion USD to build, with the US, Japan, India, China, and now Canada, all contributing funding to the project. When completed, the TMT will be one of the largest telescopes in existence, taking up an area the size of a basketball court on Mauna Kea, a dormant Hawaiian volcano.

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Its 30 meter-wide mirror lens is three times larger than the most powerful telescope currently in existence, and will allow scientists to search the skies for planets outside of our own solar system, as well as other phenomena like supermassive black holes.

It will only be outmatched by the planned European Extremely Large Telescope, which will boast a 39.9 meter-wide mirror when built.

"I personally was over the galaxy—something well beyond the moon—with delight," Ray Carlberg, an astronomer at the University of Toronto who spearheaded Canada's involvement in the TMT project, told Motherboard.

Canada's involvement in the telescope was put in jeopardy last year when funding for the project was left out of the federal budget. This raised the ire of scientists like Ray Jayawardhana, York University's dean of science, who suggested it would be "very unfortunate, almost a tragedy," and leave Canada taking a back seat to global progress in astronomy, according to the Toronto Star.

Artist's rendition of the TMT complex. Image courtesy TMT International Observatory.

Without funding, Empire Dynamic Structures, the Canadian company that designed the telescope's gargantuan enclosure would have had to pass its plans to international partners with the resources to actually build them. "The project needed to move ahead with or without us," said Carlberg, "although it certainly is a lot easier with us."

Now, Canada is back in the game. Not only will some of the telescope's key components be manufactured by Dynamic Structures in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, but Canadian scientists will also have the opportunity to use the telescope when it's operational. Right now, that's slated for sometime around 2024.

It won't all be smooth sailing between now and then, however. Native Hawaiians are protesting the building of the telescope on Mauna Kea, which they consider to be a sacred mountain, and call themselves "protectors". This week, dozens of native protectors were arrested by local police. Mauna Kea is already home to four large telescopes, and the TMT will be the fifth and largest.

"We already have allowed some up, and it's too many now," Kealoha Pisciotta, one protester, told the CBC. "Our mountain is sacred because it is the origin of our creation stories, it's also the burial ground of some of our most revered ancestors."

Despite their concerns, the construction of the TMT is all but certain now, barring serious resistance from local Hawaiians. With key funding from Canada secured, the international partners will be meeting later this month to formally proceed with construction.