U.S. national observatory and two extremely large telescope projects team up to enhance U.S. scientific leadership in astronomy and astrophysics

News Release from TMT.org, May 21, 2018

A new research frontier in astronomy and astrophysics will open in the mid-2020s with the advent of ground-based extremely large optical-infrared telescopes (ELTs) with primary mirrors in the 20-m – 40-m range. U.S. scientific leadership in astronomy and astrophysics will be significantly enhanced if the broad U.S. community can take advantage of the power of these new ELTs.

In that context, the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization (GMTO), and the Thirty Meter Telescope International Observatory (TIO) have embarked on the development of a U.S. Extremely Large Telescope (US-ELT) Program.

Our shared mission is to strengthen scientific leadership by the U.S. community-at-large through access to extremely large telescopes in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. This two-hemisphere model will provide the U.S. science community with greater and more diverse research opportunities than can be achieved with a single telescope, and hence more opportunities for leadership.

Our immediate task is advocacy for frontier research programs led by U.S community scientists that can achieve exceptional advancements in humanity’s understanding of the cosmos.

Our audience is the U.S. research community as represented by the upcoming Decadal Survey of Astronomy and Astrophysics (an enterprise of the U.S. National Academies).

As an essential part of that immediate task, we will work with the U.S. research community to develop exemplar Key Science Programs (KSPs) within major research areas including the dark universe, first stars & first galaxies, exoplanet atmospheres, the surfaces of satellites and other small bodies throughout Solar System, and/or other topics to be proposed and prioritized by community-based working groups.

Key Science Programs are envisioned to be open collaborations that gather observers, theorists, and data scientists together to exploit significant investments of Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) and Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) observing time, from tens to hundreds of nights. Some of these collaborations are expected to be international in nature. If well-justified by KSP plans, we envisage that at least 25% of the observing time at each international observatory will be available for the U.S. community.

The KSPs chosen for presentation to the Decadal Survey will not be the final programs. Astronomy and astrophysics will continue to evolve rapidly during construction of GMT and TMT, thanks to previous investments in ground– and space-based observatories, such as the NASA Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), the NASA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). Actual KSPs will be selected by peer-review before the start of GMT and TMT science operations.

NOAO, TIO, and GMTO are committed to enabling diversity within KSP collaborations. We seek to empower the best minds, no matter their gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or institutional affiliation.

More information about the U.S. ELT Program and how community scientists can join KSP development groups will be available after mid-June 2018.

Issued by the National Science Foundation’s National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), with concurrence of the Thirty Meter Telescope International Observatory (TIO) and Giant Magellan Telescope Organization (GMTO)

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SM May 11, 2018: House spending bill could brighten prospects for two giant telescopes

Representative John Culberson (R–TX), who chairs a U.S. House of Representatives spending panel that sets funding levels for the National Science Foundation (NSF), is hinting that he wants NSF to get behind both the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), a $1.4 billion facility proposed for Mauna Kea in Hawaii, and the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), a 25-meter telescope already under construction in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile.

The first step could come Thursday, when the full House appropriations committee is expected to take up Culberson’s $62 billion spending bill covering NSF and several other federal science agencies.

SM May 21, 2018: Rival giant telescopes join forces to seek U.S. funding  

Two U.S.-led giant telescope projects, rivals for nearly 2 decades, announced today that they have agreed to join forces. The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), a 25-meter telescope under construction in Chile, and the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), which backers hope to build atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii, have not finished acquiring the necessary partners and money. They will now work together to win funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in Alexandria, Virginia, which could help the projects catch up to a third giant telescope, the 39-meter European Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), due to begin operations in 2024. It is a historic peace accord to end a conflict that has divided funders and delayed both projects.

“This division has set back U.S. astronomy a decade,” says Richard Ellis, an astronomer at University College London, and a former leader of the TMT effort. “Let’s turn the corner.” Patrick McCarthy, a GMT vice president in Pasadena, California, adds, “It’s time for these two projects to come together behind a single vision.”

The partnership, approved by the GMT board this month and by the TMT board last month, commits the two projects to developing a joint plan that would allow astronomers from any institution to use the telescopes; under previous plans observing time was available only to researchers from nations or institutions that had provided funding.