The Thirty Meter Telescope

Since the date that Galileo pointed his telescope to the sky and observed that Earth’s moon has mountain and crater, telescope has been evolved so much and allows us to see much more than Galileo would have never dreamed of. Since the time that Newton’s invention that using of reflective mirror than refractive lenses, the evolution of optical telescope has been essentially on figuring out how to make bigger reflective mirror.

The use of segmented mirrors, thanks to Jerry Nelson, twentieth century is a period of extreme large telescopes that allows us to make many breakthrough discoveries. The Kecks twin telescopes were built using segment of mirrors with one of the largest aperture size of today. However, with our eager to see more into the universe, to see more about our origin, to search for our outer companions, the scale and size of current telescopes are outgrown by our ambition.

At the end of this decade, we will witness the birth of very extreme large telescopes with more than double the size of the world largest telescope now. At least three extreme large telescopes, the Giant Magellan Telescope with 24.5 meters, the Thirty Meter Telescope, and the 42 European Extremely Large Telescope will be completed at about the end of this decade.

The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), based on the success of the Keck telescopes, will be one of the super large telescopes that will be operational in 2018. The TMT will join the Keck telescopes on Mount Mauna Kea, Hawaii. TMT will be the most advance ground based optical, mid-infrared and near infrared telescope.

            As the name suggests, TMT will have a 30 meters primary mirrors, form from an array of 492 individual, 1.45 meters (4.75 foot) segments. The TMT will be equipped with an altitude-azimuth mount, capable of reposition the telescope within 5 minutes and with a precision of 0.2 arcseconds. The total mass of the TMT will reach close to 2000 tons. The TMT observatory is managed by the partnership between the  Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy (ACURA), the California Institute of Technology and the University of California.

With an area of 9 times the Keck telescopes, the TMT will be able to see much fainter objects, reach further and see more clearly up to 100 times compared to current telescopes. The TMT will be equipped with the most advance envision instruments such as NFIRAOS (Narrow Field Infrared Adaptive Optics System), IRIS (Infrared Imaging Spectrometer), IRMS (Infrared Multi-slit Spectrometer), and WFOS (Wide-Field Optical Spectrometer). The TMT an take images with the resolution of 12 times the images that the Hubble can do.  TMT will bring Earth-like exoplanet search to a new level as it will enable astronomers to look at the distant corners of the universe. For years, we are only able to detect and study exoplanets base on their parent stars. TMT will be able to collect direct light from these planets and enable astronomers to study their characterization, composition and dynamics at great details.

TMT will be able to detect the some of the faintest and youngest galaxies through their Lyman alpha emission, thanks to the NFIRAOS adaptive system and IRIS (Infrared Imaging system). Astronomers will be able to scale Lyman alpha galaxies and study the evolution of ionization.

Being able to look farther at greater distance, TMT will allow astronomers to look back further back in time and understand the universe shortly after the Big Bang. Astronomers will be able to the formation of large structures that shape the universe about 200 millions years after the Big Bang.  Directly observing distant galaxies and intergalactic medium will enable astronomer to understand the composition of the early universe and even the dark matter and dark energy.

Being able to collect light from some of the earliest large structure of the universe, TMT will enable astronomers to have a deeper look into the central black holes, investigate their formation and compositions and the relativistic effect at the center of the Galaxies.

TMT will help astronomers study and explore young galaxies and other structures at the age when these galaxies were assembled and the heavy elements formations. With the help of TMT, astronomers will be able take a closer look at the early star formations, which is different today because of lack of heavy elements in the early days.

Just as the universe is full of mysterious wonders, the Thirty Meter Telescope itself is a marvelous piece of equipment that will allow mankind to make a giant leap in understanding our origin and the whole universe that we reside in.

References and images from:

-        Thirty Meter Telescope, Detailed Science Case: 2007

-        en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Meter_Telescope

-        www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/11/thirty-meter-telescope/

-        www.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/12/200-million-gra/

-        www.tmt.org/fast-facts-for-astronomers

-        www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/10/in-the-late-197/

-        www.tmt.org/science-case