The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) got one step closer to
realization this week, with the
granting of a conservation district use permit by the Board of
Land and Natural Resources of Hawaii’s Department of Land and
Natural Resources. The permit gives the University of Hawai'i
permission to build and operate TMT on the northern plateau of
Mauna Kea; TMT will sublet the land from the University. The Board
also granted a contested case hearing to be scheduled for a later
date.
The core technology of TMT will be a 30-meter segmented primary
mirror, which will give the telescope nine times the collecting
area of today's largest optical telescopes and three-times-sharper
images.
The TMT project is an international partnership among Caltech,
the University of California, and the Association of Canadian
Universities for Research in Astronomy, joined by the National
Astronomical Observatory of Japan, the National Astronomical
Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the
Department of Science and Technology of India.
