A Place to Study Eternity: Building the Giant Magellan Telescope
Technicians and scientists at the Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab at the University of Arizona take years to cast and polish each of the seven 8.4-m-dia mirrors that will be mounted in the Giant Magellan Telescope. Work begins with placement of glass chunks on a honeycomb mold in a large, rotating furnace at the lab.
Photos by Damien Jemison, GMTO Corp.
Situated on a remote mountaintop in the Atacama Desert in Chile, the Giant Magellan Telescope will one day allow astronomers to peer further into the universe with a greater degree of clarity than ever before. But siting a highly sensitive instrument with seven massive, 8.4-meter-dia mirrors on a windy peak in one of the world’s most seismically active regions takes careful engineering, especially since the 12-story upper section of the 22-story telescope enclosure will have to rotate 360° with an extreme degree of precision, multiple times a night.
Read the full story, including extraordinary photography by Damien Jemison, here.