The Giant Magellan Telescope Groundbreaking Ceremony took place on November 11, 2015 at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. Distinguished guests participating in the ceremony were the President of Chile Michelle Bachelet, the US Ambassador to Chile Michael Hammer, the President of the University of Chile Ennio Vivaldi, Chair of the GMTO Board Taft Armandroff, and television personality Mario Kreutzberger (aka Don Francisco).

The press release can be found on our website, along with a list of the worldwide media articles about the event.

Images from the event can be found on our Google photos gallery.

The Groundbreaking Ceremony on November 11, 2015 received worldwide coverage.  A selection of great stories about the event are listed below.

Space.com:

• Space.com in Chile: Giant Magellan Telescope Groundbreaking Travelogue
• Construction of Giant Next-Generation Telescope Begins in Chile

NBC News: Giant Magellan Telescope Breaks Ground in Chile’s Atacama Desert

BBC: Giant Magellan Telescope: Super-scope project breaks ground

CBS Los Angeles: Pasadena Group Breaks Ground On Project To Build World’s Largest Telescope

Popular Mechanics: The World’s Largest Telescope Breaks Ground Today

Christian Science Monitor: Work begins on humongous telescope

Ars Technica: Astronomers begin building super telescope to see dawn of the Universe

Associated Press: Scientists break ground in Chile for Giant Magellan Telescope; to be world’s largest by 2021

Weather.com: Construction Underway on Giant Magellan Telescope in Chilean Andes

Reuters: Hoping to find life on other planets, astronomers start on giant Chile telescope

Popular Science: Construction Begins on the Giant Magellan Telescope

HuffPost Science: Giant New Telescopes To Unlock Science’s Greatest Mysteries

Engadget: Construction has begun on the Giant Magellan Telescope in Chile

Tech Insider: We just started building the largest and most powerful optical telescope ever

The Battalion: Construction of world’s largest telescope begins on Chilean soil

El Mercurio:

• Bachelet y la instalación del telescopio GMT en Chile: “Se abre una ventana al conocimiento”
• Hoy parte en Chile la construcción del próximo telescopio óptico más grande del mundo
• Infografía: Así es el nuevo telescopio que se construirá en Chile

La Tercera: Presidenta Bachelet dio inicio a la construcción del telescopio más grande del mundo

El Día: Comienza la construcción de Magallanes, el telescopio más grande del mundo

Pasadena, CA – November 11, 2015 – Leading scientists, senior officials, and supporters from an international consortium of universities and research institutions are gathering on a remote mountaintop high in the Chilean Andes today to celebrate groundbreaking for the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT). The ceremony marks the commencement of on-site construction of the telescope and its support base. The GMT is poised to become the world’s largest telescope when it begins early operations in 2021. It will produce images ten times sharper than those delivered by the Hubble Space Telescope and will address key questions in cosmology, astrophysics and the study of planets outside our solar system.

“We are thrilled to be breaking ground on the Giant Magellan Telescope site at such an exciting time for astronomy,” says Board Chair, and Director of the McDonald Observatory at the University of Texas at Austin, Dr. Taft Armandroff. “With its unprecedented size and resolving power, the Giant Magellan Telescope will allow current and future generations of astronomers to continue the journey of cosmic discovery.”

The GMT will be located at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert. Known for its clear, dark skies and outstanding astronomical image clarity, Las Campanas is one of the world’s premier locations for astronomy. Construction crews will soon be busy on the site building the roads, power, data, and other infrastructure needed to support the observatory.

The unique design of the telescope combines seven of the largest mirrors that can be manufactured, each 8.4 meters (27 feet) across, to create a single telescope effectively 25 meters or 85 feet in diameter. The giant mirrors are being developed at the University of Arizona’s Richard F. Caris Mirror Laboratory. Each mirror must be polished to an accuracy of 25 nanometers or one millionth of an inch.

One giant mirror has been polished to meet its exacting specifications. Three others are being processed, and production of the additional mirrors will be started at the rate of one per year. The telescope will begin early operations with these first mirrors in 2021, and the telescope is expected to reach full operational capacity within the next decade.

“An enormous amount of work has gone into the design phase of the Project and development of the giant mirrors that are the heart of the telescope. The highest technical risks have been retired, and we are looking forward to bringing the components of the telescope together on the mountain top,” says Patrick McCarthy, Interim President of GMTO.

The GMT will enable astronomers to characterize planets orbiting other stars, witness early formation of galaxies and stars, and gain insight into dark matter and dark energy. GMT’s findings will also likely give rise to new questions and lead to new and unforeseen discoveries.

The GMT Organization Board of Directors officially approved the Project’s entry into the construction phase in early 2015 after the eleven international Founders committed over $500M towards the project. Founders come from the U.S., Australia, Brazil, and Korea, with Chile as the host country.

“With today’s groundbreaking, we take a crucial step forward in our mission to build the first in a new generation of extremely large telescopes. The GMT will usher in a new era of discovery and help us to answer some of our most profound questions about the universe,” says GMTO Board Member and Director of the Harvard/Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Dr. Charles Alcock. “We are pleased to celebrate this momentous milestone with our Chilean colleagues, our international partners, and the astronomical community.”

Today, the University of Arizona celebrates the newly renamed Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab, part of Steward Observatory and the College of Science, and casts the fourth of the Giant Magellan Telescope’s primary mirror segments. Glass for the 8.4m diameter central segment has been loaded into a mold housed in a rotating oven, and is in the process of being melted. The second and third mirror segments for the telescope are currently being polished at the mirror lab.

GMT4: Loading Ohara E-6 glass into oven. Glass loading completed. ready for placement of oven lid. Image credit Ray Bertram, University of Arizona, Steward Observatory.

The mirror lab has been renamed in honor of Richard F. Caris, who donated $20 million to the UA to support the university’s partnership in the construction of the GMT. At the ceremony today, UA President Ann Weaver Hart, College of Science Dean Joaquin Ruiz and others will give remarks.

More information on the mirror fabrication process is available on our website.

GMTO will celebrate the start of construction of the Giant Magellan Telescope with a groundbreaking ceremony at Las Campanas Observatory, Chile, on November 11, 2015.

Distinguished guests from the Chilean government and higher education sector will attend this historic event, along with VIPs from GMTO’s partner institutions.

In celebration of the start of construction of what will become one of the world’s largest optical telescopes, there will be captivating speeches by project staff, partner representatives and Chilean government officials, followed by a ceremony to mark the groundbreaking. Dinner will be served and, as the twilight settles, guests will have the opportunity to stargaze from one of the finest sites on earth.

The Giant Magellan Telescope Organization is hosting a three-day conference on the topics of resolved stellar populations and galaxy formation. Scientists from around the world will gather at the Asilomar Conference Grounds on the Monterey Peninsula in California to discuss the state of the field in topics ranging from using galaxies as cosmological probes, near-field and far-field connections, dwarf demographics, and galactic archeology.

Registration is free, and travel support is provided for graduate students and post-doctoral researchers.

Registration deadline: September 1, 2015
Poster abstract submission deadline: September 1, 2015

Visit the conference website here.

Pasadena CA – The Giant Magellan Telescope Organization (GMTO) is having a change of leadership.

The GMTO Board of Directors regrets to announce today that Dr. Edward I. Moses is stepping down as President of GMTO in order to deal with family matters that require his attention.

The GMTO Board thanks Dr. Moses for his important service to GMTO in leading the project from the design phase to the start of the construction phase. Dr. Moses was instrumental in sealing the GMTO Founders’ Agreement and in developing the legal and financial framework for the project. He grew the GMTO staff from the initial design team of about 30 people to a world-class organization of more than 90 people, recruiting a team capable of managing an ambitious project at the forefront of modern astronomy, and establishing key organizational structures to support GMT construction and commissioning.

The GMTO Board is pleased to announce that Dr. Patrick J. McCarthy, a Carnegie Observatories astronomer and formerly GMTO Executive Vice President, is now leading GMTO as interim President. Dr. McCarthy has been a key member of GMTO’s leadership team since 2008.

“Having been with this project since the beginning, I am excited by the great progress that we are making,” said Dr. McCarthy. “Ed brought his deep experience to our project and he has left us stronger as a result. He had the insight into the staffing, processes and the review strategy we need for success in this endeavour. We still have an enormous amount of work to do. Our dedicated team is focused on achieving our goal to build the first in the next generation of the world’s largest optical telescopes.”

Professor Taft Armandroff, Chair of the GMTO Board and Director of McDonald Observatory at The University of Texas, Austin, noted that, “Ed has led the GMT project in developing the engineering and technology skillset we need, and implementing more disciplined management approaches to enable successful execution of the project.” He continued, “The Board is also pleased with Ed’s successful recruiting program. We now have a strong technical and corporate staff dedicated to GMT. Their experience from past projects makes this team ideally suited to establish the GMT as one of the most powerful telescopes in the world. We wish Ed well and thank him for his outstanding contributions.”

The Giant Magellan Telescope is on schedule to reach first light in 2022, having successfully passed multiple design reviews by external committees. The telescope will be built at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile on a site that has been levelled in preparation for construction. Three of the seven 8.4-meter primary mirror segments have been cast at the University of Arizona Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab (formerly Steward Observatory Mirror Lab), with the fourth, central segment scheduled for casting in September.

The Giant Magellan Telescope Organization (GMTO) announced today that Professor Wendy Freedman is stepping down from the GMTO Board after 12 years as its Chair. Professor Freedman, the John and Marion Sullivan University Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago, was one of the initiators of the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) project and a key founding figure for the organization. She led GMTO from its inception, with seed funding of $500,000 through the recent start of construction, with funding of half-a-billion dollars. Her vision for GMT has brought together an international partnership of eleven institutions from four countries to build a next-generation telescope that will probe deeper into the universe than ever before.

Professor Freedman said, “After more than a decade of guiding GMTO through the design phase and now into construction, it is time for me to devote more effort to my science research interests. I look forward to using the GMT when it is operational.”

Professor Taft Armandroff, Vice-Chair of the GMTO Board and Director of McDonald Observatory at the University of Texas, Austin, noted that, “Wendy has led the GMT project from its earliest conception to the start of construction. GMTO has been most fortunate to have had her guidance for so long.”

Professor Matthew Colless, a Board member from the Australian National University, also thanked Professor Freedman, saying, “The GMTO partnership has reached the present construction milestone only because of Wendy’s extraordinary efforts to form the partnership and her inspirational leadership. The GMTO partners offer their heartfelt appreciation to Wendy for all she has contributed to the project.”

Taft Armandroff, as Vice Chair, will lead the GMTO Board until a new Chair is selected.

On June 3, 2015 our announcement of the start of construction was covered by over 100 media outlets across the globe. Below are some great articles about the announcement.

Mashable: Giant new telescope set to break ground in Chile later this year

CNN: World’s largest telescope to explore universe’s deepest secrets

BBC: Magellan super-scope gets green light for construction

Engineering.com: World’s Largest Earthbound Telescope to Outperform Hubble

Popular Mechanics: The Biggest Telescope in the World Is About to Begin Construction

ABC Los Angeles: VIDEO: GIANT MAGELLAN TELESCOPE CONSTRUCTION BEGINS

Business Insider Australia: Australia will help build the world’s largest telescope which could detect other life within the universe

Chicago Tribune: Largest telescope gets approval for construction

Collaborators secure over US$500 million for historic project to build giant optical telescope

PASADENA, Calif. – June 3, 2015 – The Giant Magellan Telescope Organization has announced today that its 11 international partners have committed more than US$500 million to begin construction of the first of a new generation of extremely large telescopes. Once it is built, the Giant Magellan Telescope is poised to be the largest optical telescope in the world.

The Giant Magellan Telescope’s seven mirrors span 25 meters and will focus more than six times the amount of light of the current largest optical telescopes into images up to 10 times sharper than those of the Hubble Space Telescope. The GMT will enable astronomers to look deeper into space and further back in time than ever before. The telescope is expected to see first light in 2021 and be fully operational by 2024.

“The GMT will herald the beginning of a new era in astronomy. It will reveal the first objects to emit light in the universe, explore the mysteries of dark energy and dark matter, and identify potentially habitable planets in the Earth’s galactic neighborhood,” said Wendy Freedman, chair of the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization (GMTO) Board of Directors and University Professor of Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Chicago. “The decision by the GMTO partner institutions to start construction is a crucial milestone on our journey to making these amazing discoveries using state-of-the-art science, technology and engineering.”

GMTO President Edward Moses said, “The GMT is a global scientific collaboration, with institutional partners in Australia, Brazil, Korea, the United States, and in host nation Chile. The construction approval means work will begin on the telescope’s core structure and the scientific instruments that lie at the heart of this US$1 billion project. Early preparation for construction has included groundwork at the mountaintop site at Las Campanas in northern Chile, and initial fabrication of the telescope’s seven enormous primary mirror segments.”

Professor Matthew Colless, Vice Chair of the Board of Directors and Director of the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at The Australian National University, said the construction approval was an exciting moment for astronomy.

“Plans that have existed only in two dimensions or as computer models are about to become a three-dimensional reality in glass, steel, and high-tech semiconductor and composite materials,” said Colless. “The Giant Magellan Telescope will provide astronomers and astrophysicists with the opportunity to truly transform our view of the universe and our place within it.”

To access our video news package including interviews with GMTO partners and b-roll, as well as images and video graphics of the Giant Magellan Telescope, please visit: www.gmto.org/gallery.

About the Giant Magellan Telescope

The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) is slated to be the first in a new class of extremely large telescopes, capable of producing images with 10 times the clarity of those captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. The GMT aims to discover Earth-like planets around nearby stars and the tiny distortions that black holes cause in the light from distant stars and galaxies. It will reveal the faintest objects ever seen in space, including extremely distant and ancient galaxies, the light from which has been travelling to Earth since shortly after the Big Bang, 13.8 billion years ago. The telescope will be built at the Carnegie Institution for Science’s Las Campanas Observatory in the dry, clear air of Chile’s Atacama Desert, in a dome 22 stories high. GMT is expected to see first light in 2021 and be fully operational by 2024.

The telescope’s 25.4-meter (82 feet) primary mirror will comprise seven separate 8.4-meter (27 feet) diameter segments. Each mirror segment weighs 17 tons and takes one year to cast and cool, followed by more than three years of surface generation and meticulous polishing at the Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab of the Steward Observatory of the University of Arizona in Tucson, Ariz. Funding for the project comes from the partner institutions, governments and private donors.

About the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization

The Giant Magellan Telescope Organization (GMTO) manages the GMT project on behalf of its international partners: Astronomy Australia Ltd., The Australian National University, Carnegie Institution for Science, Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo, Harvard University, Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, Smithsonian Institution, Texas A&M University, The University of Arizona, The University of Chicago, and The University of Texas at Austin.

Connect with the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization on social media: gplus.to/gmtelescope, twitter.com/GMTelescope, facebook.com/GMTelescope and visit http://www.gmto.org.

Media contacts:

Sarah Lewis
Phone: 650-801-0937
E-mail: sarah.lewis@zenogroup.com

Steve Koppes
Phone: 773-702-8366
Email: skoppes@uchicago.edu

Davin Malasarn
Phone: 626-204-0529
E-mail: dmalasarn@gmto.org

Business contacts:

Edward Moses
President of the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization
(+1) 626-204-0555

Wendy Freedman
Chair, Board of Directors, Giant Magellan Telescope Organization
(+1) 773-834-5651

Matthew Colless
Vice-Chair, Board of Directors, Giant Magellan Telescope Organization
Director, Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics
The Australian National University
(+61) 2-6125-0266

The 25th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope was on April 24, 2015. To celebrate, GMTO Director, Patrick McCarthy, talked to several media outlets about his experience helping to guide the design of the Wide Field Camera 3. The resulting articles are below.

Nature World News by Brian Stallard. “Hail the Hubble: Experts Talk About the Iconic Telescope’s 25 Years in Space” 

Engadget by Mariella Moon. “Hubble turns 25: The past, present and future”

NBCNews by Alan Boyle. “Hubble Space Telescope Turns 25, With Discoveries and Drama Galore”

Space.com by Elizabeth Howell. “Beyond Hubble: Future Space Observatories Will Carry Telescope’s Legacy Forward”

Ars Technica by John Timmer: “25 years of the Hubble Space Telescope” 

Washington Post by Joel Achenbach. “Still sharp, Hubble Space Telescope turns 25 with a cloudy future”

The Register by Ian Thomson. “Hubble hits 25th anniversary IN SPAAACE – time for telescope to come home” 

The Giant Magellan Telescope Organization is hosting a three-day conference on the topics of resolved stellar populations and galaxy formation. Scientists from around the world will gather at the Asilomar Conference Grounds on the Monterey Peninsula in California to discuss the state of the field in topics ranging from using galaxies as cosmological probes, near-field and far-field connections, dwarf demographics, and galactic archeology.

Registration is free, and travel support is provided for graduate students and post-doctoral researchers.

Registration deadline: September 1, 2015
Abstract submission deadline: July 1, 2015

Visit the conference website here.

From The Canberra Times:

Professor Peter McGregor has been remembered for his pivotal role in rebuilding the Mount Stromlo Observatory following the 2003 bushfires, after losing his battle with cancer.

Professor McGregor will be farewelled at a funeral on Wednesday after his death from throat cancer last Thursday, aged 59.

As well as working on his own on research at the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics focusing on star formation and black holes, Professor McGregor was best known for building instruments for astronomical telescopes all over the world, the school’s director Professor Matthew Colless said.

He and his team had been working on a new instrument for the 25-metre Giant Magellan telescope and in the past he had built two instruments for the eight-metre Gemini telescopes in Hawaii and Chile.

Read the full Canberra Times article here.