The Giant Magellan Telescope, which will be located in the Atacama Desert in Chile, is entering a peak moment in its construction. recently started the manufacture of the seventh and last primary mirror, which will last 4 years.
This mirror will allow you to complete the telescope’s 368-square-meter light-collecting surface.
It will be part of the largest and most complex optical system in the world, capturing more light than any other telescope in existence.
According to the portal Giant Magellan Telescope, In September, the Richard F. Caris Mirror Laboratory, at the University of Arizona, closed the lid of a specially designed oven, with 20 tons of optical glass of the highest purity, to manufacture the mirror.
This oven, located beneath the stands of the Wildcats football stadium, It will spin while heating the glass to 1,165°C.
Mirror, with a diameter of 8.4 meters, It will take three months to cool before moving on to the polishing stage.
Buell Jannuzi, principal investigator of the primary mirror manufacturing team of the Giant Magellan Telescope, said: “This telescope will make history with its future discoveries. “We are very pleased to be approaching another major milestone in the manufacturing of the Giant Magellan Telescope.”
The structure of the telescope It is 39 meters high, and is made with 2,100 tons of steel American at a plant built in Rockford, Illinois. Then it will move to the Atacama Desert, in Chile.
According to the established schedule, the Giant Magellan Telescope It will operate in the late 2020s, early 2030s.
“We will have a unique ability to study planets at high spatial and spectral resolution,” said Rebecca Bernstein, scientific director of the telescope. “This is essential to determine if a planet has a rocky composition, like the Earth, if it contains liquid water and whether its atmosphere contains the necessary combination of molecules for life to exist.”