Jerry Nelson, project scientist for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) and professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, will share the $1 million Kavli Prize in Astrophysics with two other researchers for their innovations in the field of telescope design. Nelson鈥檚 engineering and scientific innovations enabled the building of a new class of large telescopes that revolutionized the science of astronomy.
Quest for the Best Window on the Universe:聽Location may be important in real estate, but it鈥檚 essential for astronomy, especially when the home you鈥檙e building is for the world鈥檚 most advanced and powerful telescope, the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). 聽But how do you find the best and what makes one site better than another? 聽
One of the most important milestones in the development and construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) is the precision polishing of TMT鈥檚 primary mirror segments. Each of the 492 hexagonal segments, which measure 1.44 meters across from corner-to-corner, must have a surface that is accurate to 100 nanometers (about 1,000 times thinner than a sheet of paper).
When the 10-meter Keck I telescope first became fully operational in 1992, the only planets known to exist were those in our own solar system. Models of planet formation dutifully reproduced the nine known examples, and most astronomers thought that when other planets were finally seen, those solar systems would look like our own, with giant Jovian planets in the outer regions and small rocky planets in the inner parts.
Astronomers have found more than 400 alien worlds orbiting distant stars. So far, nearly all of these exoplanets are bigger than Jupiter and hotter than Mercury 鈥� places that appear very unfriendly to life. But astronomers are now starting to identify smaller, more intriguing objects, including potential water worlds and so-called super-Earths. Next-generation telescopes may soon close in on the ultimate goal: Finding alien planets that...
The Thirty Meter Telescope Project (TMT) is launching a new database containing five years of atmospheric data from the telescope鈥檚 initial five candidates sites: Cerro Tolar, Cerro Armazones, and Cerro Tolonchar, Chile; San Pedro Martir, Mexico; and Mauna Kea, Hawaii, the site selected for TMT. A聽website containing the entire dataset, the largest of its kind, will be released free-of-charge to the public today.
The search for Earth-like planets, the nature and distribution of dark matter, and the quest to image the first stars and galaxies are just some of the science challenges that will be addressed by the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT).
鈥淲e warmly welcome our Chinese colleagues, who will expand the international involvement in the Thirty Meter Telescope Project,鈥� said Professor Ray Carlberg, the Canadian Large Optical Telescope project director and a TMT board member. 鈥淭his new collaboration broadens the pool of talent and demonstrates the interest of national governments in TMT.鈥�
The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) is partnering with the SETI Institute's radio/podcast program Are We Alone? by underwriting a series of astronomy-related segments during the year. Learn more and listen on our聽Podcasts page.
To ensure that the site chosen for TMT would enable the telescope to achieve its full potential, a global satellite survey was conducted, from which five outstanding candidate sites were chosen for further ground-based studies of atmospheric stability, wind patterns, temperature variation, and other meteorological characteristics that would affect the performance of the telescope.
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