The state has concluded that the telescope doesn’t pose a risk to the aquifer or Hawaii island’s water supply. The TMT’s potential effect on the water supply is one of the most commonly voiced environmental concerns by activists. What impact - if any - will the TMT have on the Big Island’s aquifer and water supply? The remaining 11 observatories are in use and continue to produce scientific data. Two have been sitting unused for several years and are in the process of being decommissioned. Squires says the TIO also has a plan to decommission the telescope after its lifetime, which is estimated to be 50 years of use.Ĭurrently the state is planning to decommission five telescopes on the mountain. The analysis includes plans to mitigate the impact.Ī previous version of this story incorrectly said that the wekiu bug was a former endangered species. The organization’s environmental impact statement acknowledges that the TMT’s construction will disturb some habitat of the wekiu bug, formerly a candidate for the endangered species list. The project construction won’t involve dynamite. Gordon Squires, vice president for external relations for the TMT International Observatory, says the project site is less visible than the mountain peak would be and isn’t home to any endangered species. The TIO created this rendering after hearing rumors that the TMT would be comparable in size to Aloha Stadium. This rendering of the Thirty Meter Telescope shows that the observatory is smaller than Aloha Stadium. The building itself will be 180 feet high and 14 feet below ground level. The entire project area is expected to take up 5 acres, including the telescope dome, support building and parking lot. The TMT is going to be built on a new site, not on top of decommissioned telescopes. The mountain facilities also have a history of chemical and waste spills that include up to 1,000 gallons of sewage overflowing in 2008.īut the university has improved its management of the mountain over the past two decades and the TMT International Observatory, the nonprofit organization behind the TMT, says this project will be a zero-waste facility with minimal impact on the mountain.Ĭivil Beat examined some of the key environmental questions about the project:Ĭivil Beat recently received this question from a reader: “How much more land is intended to be used for the new telescope or are they removing one or two of the old telescopes and using the same pads for the new one? I’ve been told they are taking thousands of more acres? Is this true?” A 1998 state audit found that observatories left trash and old equipment and damaged historical sites and endangered species candidate habitat. It doesn’t help that the University of Hawaii has a poor history of managing the mountain. Other facts are more nuanced or complex than they initially appear. Some of the environmental claims raised on social media, like rumors about the TMT being fueled by nuclear power, are false. An artist’s rendering of the Thirty Meter Telescope shows the observatory in the bottom left of the frame. But many opponents also have concerns about the environmental impact of what would be the world’s largest visible-light telescope. Some who consider the mountain sacred believe adding another structure to be desecration, no matter what that structure is. Hundreds of activists remain at the base of Mauna Kea Access Road and plan to stay to prevent construction trucks from heading up the mountain. TMT will extend astronomy with extremely large telescopes to all of its global communities.Emotions have been running high about the plan to build another telescope on Mauna Kea, a mountain on the Big Island that’s already home to a thriving astronomy industry. The TMT project is a global effort of its partners with all partners contributing to the design, technology development, construction and scientific use of the observatory. With TMT's 492 segments optically phased, and by employing laser guide star assisted multi-conjugate adaptive optics, TMT will achieve the full diffraction limited performance of its 30-meter aperture, enabling unprecedented wide field imaging and multi-object spectroscopy. The TMT design employs the filled-aperture finely-segmented primary mirror technology pioneered with the W.M. With large and open Nasmyth-focus platforms for generations of science instruments, TMT will have the versatility and flexibility for its envisioned 50 years of forefront astronomy. The astronomy communities of India, Canada, China, Japan and the USA are shaping its science goals, suite of instrumentation and the system design of the TMT observatory. It will initiate the era of extremely large (30-meter class) telescopes with diffraction limited performance from its vantage point in the northern hemisphere on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, USA. The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) will be the first truly global ground-based optical/infrared observatory.
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