Giant Telescopes of Tomorrow
Giant Magellan Telescope
The GMT is one of several large ground-based optical telescopes in development. Situated high and dry in Chile, it will have seven primary mirror segments, each over 26 feet across, arranged like the petals of a flower. GMT team goals include investigating three of the hottest cosmic topics now on the table—dark matter, dark energy, and planets outside our solar system—as well as the formation of galaxies and the growth of black holes. Like its competitor giant scopes, it will feature adaptive optics, which corrects image distortions caused by our turbulent atmosphere.