Moore money for Thirty Metre Telescope
The Moore Foundation just donated $200 million to Caltech and UC jointly to build the Thirty Metre Telescope - a successor to the Keck telescopes.
That is a lot.
Apparently with matches the total in the bank is now $300 million or so, so construction will presumably commence.
492 individually controlled 1.45m mirrors. Nice.
Adaptive optics. Six lasers for guide stars.
Good spatial resolution. Huge light bucket.
More like this
"We find them smaller and fainter, in constantly increasing numbers, and we know that we are reaching into space, farther and farther, until, with the faintest nebulae that can be detected with the greatest telescopes, we arrive at the frontier of the known universe." -Edwin Hubble
The service tower attached to the iconic floating egg atop the Institute's Koffler accelerator (the "spaceship" in the photo, left) has recently been graced with a charming, shiny silver skullcap - an observatory dome.
I was doing a little research into the history of telescopes, and it was about a century ago that they finally realized how much more potential light-gathering power reflecting telescopes had as compared to the older
"I went into a clothing store, and the lady asked me what size I was. I said, 'Actual'. I'm not to scale." -Demitri Martin
This story was on the radio (NPR via KPCC-FM) before I woke up, which seriously perturbed my last dream before getting up. Made it into science fiction, some sort of linear combination of Greg Benford, Greg Bear, Dave Brin, Fred Hoyle, and Thomas Pynchon about a Big Dumb Object discovered hurtling towards our solare system. I failed to jot down my dream memories upon awakening, which is sometimes a mistake. My Physics professor wife and I have both sold science fiction poems and stories that came to us in dreams.
Probably the Thirty Metre Telescope will provide plenty of surprises, wihout extraterrestrial civilizations in the mix. But, still, wouldn't that be cool? I mean, atmospheres with smog and fission waste in them, what can one conclude?