Part of: GS Prelims and GS-III – Science and technology; Space
In news
2020 Physics Nobel Laureate Prof. Andrea Ghez had worked closely with Indian astronomers on the design of back-end instruments and possible science prospects of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project being installed at Maunakea in Hawaii.
Key takeaways
TMT project is an international partnership between CalTech, Universities of California, Canada, Japan, China, and India.
“Thirty Metre” refers to the 30-metre diameter of the mirror, with 492 segments of glass pieced together.
Once completed, it would be three times as wide as the world’s largest existing visible-light telescope.
The larger the mirror, the more light a telescope can collect, which means, in turn, that it can “see” farther, fainter objects.
It would be more than 200 times more sensitive than current telescopes.
It would be able to resolve objects 12 times better than the Hubble Space Telescope.
Application: The study of exoplanets
Do you know?
Already the site of a number of observatories and 13 large telescopes, Mauna Kea is considered sacred by native Hawaiians who believe that such constructions defile the Mauna Kea Mountain.
If the Thirty Metre Telescope cannot be built on Mauna Kea Mountain in Hawaii, Spain’s Canary Islands is a backup site.
