The Giant Magellan Telescope, as it will appear upon completion. Image credit: Giant Magellan Telescope / GMTO Corporation.

World’s largest telescope will revolutionize the future of astronomy

How a telescope 100 times the size of Hubble is going to change everything.

“For my confirmation, I didn’t get a watch and my first pair of long pants, like most Lutheran boys. I got a telescope. My mother thought it would make the best gift.” -Wernher von Braun

Want to see deeper into the Universe than ever before. Build a bigger telescope. No matter what other tricks you use, there’s no substitute for size. The bigger your primary mirror is:

1. the more light you gather,
2. the better your resolution is,
3. and more details can be seen, more distant and faster than under any other circumstances.

The problem is, there’s a size limit to how big you can build a single mirror and still have it be shaped correctly. Until we start manufacturing mirrors in zero-gravity, we’ve had two options: cast a single mirror up to the maximum size you can manufacture it — around 8 meters — or build a large number of smaller segments and stitch them together.

The interior and the primary mirror of the GTC, the largest single optical telescope in the world today. Image credit: Miguel Briganti (SMM/IAC).