RUSSIA – Members of the GMTO consortium and their industrial companions have accomplished the design of the 65-meter dome for the enormous optical telescope GMT underneath building.
The development of this dome will enable the beginning of the meeting of all the principle elements of the telescope within the Chilean “Las Campanas” observatory positioned at excessive altitudes.
A report revealed by the consortium acknowledged: “After finishing its building, the 65-meter-high GMT Dome shall be one of many largest automated constructions within the historical past of recent engineering. Regardless of its mass of 5,000 tons, the dome will be capable to make an entire rotation in 4 hours.” minutes. On the identical time, it will likely be geared up with curtain doorways 46 meters excessive to guard the telescope from pure storms.”
Because the report famous, the dome of one of many largest ground-based telescopes within the historical past of astronomy was collectively developed by members of the GMTO consortium and the European structure agency IDOM, which developed the conceptual design for one more big telescope underneath building, the European Massive Telescope ELT.
It took regarding two years to design this dome, because of the distinctive nature of the undertaking and its unprecedented dimension. In keeping with present estimates by GMTO contributors, building of the telescope is 40% full, meeting of one among GMT’s adaptive secondary mirrors is now ending, and manufacturing of the telescope’s ultimate main mirror and varied optoelectronic elements, together with spectrometers and photosensitive arrays, has begun.
Concerning the GMT telescope
The GMT (Large Magellan Telescope), the biggest telescope on the earth with a traditional lens and mirror design, has been underneath building since 2017 on the Las Campanas Observatory within the Chilean Atacama Desert. Its building undertaking is funded by 12 main scientific establishments in the USA of America, Australia, Brazil and South Korea. As soon as accomplished, the GMT shall be one of many largest optical telescopes on Earth.
The telescope will include a composite important mirror with a diameter of 24.5 m, which shall be assembled from seven particular person mirrors with a diameter of 8.4 m. The whole mass of the telescope, excluding the dome, shall be greater than 2.1 thousand tons, and its building value will exceed 2 billion {dollars}. As soon as accomplished, the GMT may have a decision 200 instances that of present ground-based telescopes, and 10 instances that of the Hubble Orbiter.
Supply: TASS
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2024-06-16 22:58:46