Moore grant aids TMT project

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has awarded $17.5 million to the University of California for collaboration with Caltech to build the Thirty-Meter Telescope (TMT), the most powerful in the world. Coupled with the foundation’s award to Caltech for the same amount, a total of $35 million is now available for the visionary project’s next step, which will be to formulate detailed design plans.

A 30-meter-diameter optical and infrared telescope would result in images more than 12 times sharper than those of the Hubble Space Telescope. With such an instrument, astrophysicists will be able to study the earliest galaxies and the details of their formation, as well as pinpoint the processes that lead to young planetary systems around nearby stars.

“We are very pleased that the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has recognized the strengths of the University of California and Caltech to carry out such an important project,” says UC President Robert C. Dynes.

The two institutions will also work with the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy and the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy, which are seeking funding.
Richard Ellis, director of Caltech Optical Observatories and Steele Family Professor of Astronomy, notes that the award will provide crucial funding to address the project’s major areas of risk. “This next phase is of central importance, because in the course of carrying it out, we will establish the fundamental technologies and methods necessary for the building of the telescope,” he says.
Following the design study, the project’s final phase, not yet funded, will be construction of the observatory at a site still to be determined. Regular astronomical observations are projected to begin by approximately 2012.
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