After 10 years of delay, the controversial Thirty Meter Telescope may finally be built in Spain

A long-delayed project to build the largest telescope in the Northern Hemisphere atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii has been given new life, as Spain has offered new funding and a new location on the island of La Palma.

International thirty meter telescope (TMT) was to be built with a collection of other astronomical telescopes at an altitude of 4,205 meters atop Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. but there is a mountain Sacred to Hawaiian indigenous communitiesAnd by attempting to proceed with the project with disregard for the environmental and cultural importance of the area, construction was halted before it could begin, and costs escalated.

Spain has now made an offer €400 million ,$648 million) To help TMT make it to the top Roque de los Muchachos On the island of La Palma, part of the Canary Islands in the Atlantic off the coast of Africa. There are already more than 20 astronomical telescopes at 2,396 metres, it is not as high as Mauna Kea and the weather is not as clear.hey but it is A good second option.

However, a Canary Islands environmental group, Ben Mezek-Ecologist in Actionhas also said oThey are against taking the project to Spain, so it remains to be seen whether TMT organizers have learned from their past mistakes, that it is cheaper and easier to get everyone involved in the first place.

In the world of binoculars, size matters. The larger the primary mirror, the more light it can collect, bringing more distant, fainter celestial objects into view. Ever since Galileo pointed his small hand-held telescope toward the Moon in 1610, instruments with solid glass mirrors up to five meters wide have gotten bigger and bigger.

For comparison, the largest telescope in Canada, David Dunlap Observatory in ontario, haA mirror that spans only 1.88 metres.

With the advent of segmented mirrors, using hexagonal pieces that fit together as glass puzzles, the proportions of telescopes have become much larger, with mirrors as large as baseball diamonds capable of scanning the sky with up to 200 times more power than current ground-based telescopes.

The TMT is one of these three “megatelescopes”, but the only one in the Northern Hemisphere. extremely large telescope (ELT) and giant magellan telescope (GMT) both will be based in Chile.

The planning of TMT started more than two decades ago. Many groups and countries came together to finance this project, including canadaWhich contributed $243.5 million in 2015 under the Stephen Harper government. Since the beginning, Mauna Kea has been considered the best location due to its location above most clouds, and a location in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with clear skies most nights of the year.

However, the current observatories on the mountain, which were built primarily from 1967 to 1999, went ahead without the approval of the Native Hawaiians, who consider the mountain sacred. This time, the indigenous community were able to take a standand stopping construction on the site since 2014,

These delays have increased the cost to US$3.9 billion and put the project in limbo.

TMT gets another blow Recent withdrawal of US support This comes after the current administration made severe cuts to the National Science Foundation in May. Instead, it was decided to focus efforts on getting GMT up and running in Chile.

When building giant telescopes on the ground may seem strange James Webb Space Telescope It has peered farther into space and farther back in time than any other telescope in history. But these new devices, with giant mirrors six times larger than Webb’s, should be able to match or exceed its performance.

Another advantage of ground-based telescopes is that they can be serviced regularly, extending their lifespan by several decades, and new instruments can be added as the technology evolves. Webb is completely out of reach on the other side of the Moon and is expected to last another decade, depending on when it runs out of fuel.

The delays and rising costs of the TMT project underscore the importance of involving indigenous people when large projects are planned on their lands. we have a similar situation With projected pipelines crossing native lands from Alberta to British Columbia in Canada. If consultation is not part of the initial planning, billion-dollar projects can take much longer and cost much more to complete.