CURRENT AFFAIRS FOR UPSC IAS

• Indian astronomers had worked closely with Nobel Laureate Andrea Ghez on the design of back-end instruments and possible science prospects of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project being installed at Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

What is TMT?

• The saga of the TMT began in 2003, when a nonprofit partnership formed between two universities in California and counterparts in Japan, China, India and Canada.
• The Thirty Meter Telescope is a new class of extremely large telescopes that will allow to see deeper into space and observe cosmic objects with unprecedented sensitivity.
• With its 30 m prime mirror diameter, TMT will be three times as wide, with nine times more area, than the largest currently existing visible-light telescope in the world.
• This will provide unparalleled resolution with TMT images more than 12 times sharper than those from the Hubble Space Telescope.
• When operational, TMT will provide new observational opportunities in essentially every field of astronomy and astrophysics.  
• Observing in wavelengths ranging from the ultraviolet to the mid-infrared, this unique instrument will allow astronomers to address fundamental questions in astronomy ranging from understanding star and planet formation to unraveling the history of galaxies and the development of large-scale structure in the universe.

Who is building TMT?

• The Thirty Meter Telescope is being designed and developed by the TMT International Observatory LLC (TIO).
• The TIO is a non-profit international partnership between:
  • the California Institute of Technology
  • the University of California
  • the National Institutes of Natural Sciences of Japan
  • the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
  • the Department of Science and Technology of India
  • the National Research Council (Canada)
• The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) is a TIO Associate and major funding for TMT has been provided by the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation.
• The TIO will also run the TMT operations once the telescope is completed.