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Long-delayed Thirty Meter Telescope gets the go-ahead, for now
Building the world's largest telescope has proven to be even more difficult than one might expect. The Thirty Meter Telescope, which has been planned for construction atop of Hawaii's Mauna Kea, has hit a number of snags, but it got a major approval this week. The state's land board granted the project construction approval in a 5-2 vote, but those that have challenged it from the beginning plan to keep fighting.
Hawaii's Thirty Meter Telescope could force others to close
For one to rise, others must fall. Hawaii's governor David Ige has given his blessing to the controversial Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) that scientists want to build on the Mauna Kea mountain. But there's a catch -- in return, he wants "at least 25 percent" of the existing telescopes to be torn down. At the moment, there are 13 telescopes on the mountainside and only one is scheduled to be dismantled. Under Ige's new proposals, one facility would need to enter the decommissioning process this year, and the remainder in his 25 percent quota would need to be gone before the TMT is operational in the mid-2020s.
Thirty Meter Telescope's website was hacked to protest its construction
A lot of people are obviously still unhappy that the Thirty Meter Telescope's (TMT) construction was greenlit, because the project's website was reportedly hacked on Sunday. A group called Operation Green Rights, which is associated with Anonymous, claims to be the brains behind the DDoS attack that took down the the TMT portal for a few hours. A post on its website says: "Nothing will ever justify the destruction of ecosystems; filthy money can never replace them. Stand with the Hawaiian natives against #TMT." The group also claims to be behind another DDoS attack on Hawaii's local website.
Hawaii clears land use for the Thirty Meter Telescope, construction to start in 2014
The Thirty Meter Telescope has been under development for more than a decade, but the sheer amount of land needed on Hawaii's Mauna Kea for its namesake main mirror has proved problematic: locals have formally challenged the multi-university effort over concerns that it might damage both the environment and natives' heritage. Regardless of which stance you take on the issue, the project is going forward now that the state's Board of Land and Natural Resources has granted an official land permit. The move clears an optical and near-infrared telescope with nine times the coverage area of its peers, and three times the sharpness. That's enough to observe light from 13 billion years ago as well as put a heavy focus on tracking extrasolar planets, including planets in the making. Any impact on science or Mauna Kea will have to wait when construction doesn't even start until April 2014, although we're hoping that environmental care requirements attached to the permit will let us appreciate both the early universe and modern-day Earth in equal measure.
