Primary mirror for Giant Magellan Telescope nears completion

The seventh and final required primary mirror segment for the Giant Magellan Telescope, or GMT is about to be constructed. During the “high fire” event, chunks of glass will melt inside a one-of-a-kind, spinning oven housed beneath the stands of Arizona Stadium.

Primary mirror for Giant Magellan Telescope nears completion

Measuring 27.5 feet (8.4 meters) in diameter about two stories tall when standing on edge the mirror will cool over the next three months before it is ready for the next stage of being prepared for the telescope. The four-year process of fabricating mirror segment 7 will provide the GMT with the minimum number of mirror segments required to complete the telescope’s 4,155-square-foot light collecting surface, the world’s largest and most challenging optics ever produced. The Giant Magellan Telescope will be the first extremely large telescope to complete its primary mirror array.

At 50 million times more powerful than the human eye, “the telescope will make history through its future discoveries,” said Buell Jannuzi, director of Steward Observatory and head of the Department of Astronomy, who serves as principal investigator for the fabrication of the GMT’s primary mirror segments. “We are thrilled to be closing in on another milestone toward completion of this groundbreaking observatory.”

According to Rebecca Bernstein, the GMT’s chief scientist, the combination of light-gathering power, efficiency and image resolution will enable researchers to make new discoveries across all fields of astronomy.

“We will have a unique combination of capabilities for studying planets at high spatial and spectral resolution, both of which are key to determining if a planet has a rocky composition like our Earth,” Bernstein said, “whether it contains liquid water, and whether its atmosphere contains the right combination of molecules to indicate the presence of life.”

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