The world's largest telescope Magallanes will be located in Chile

On June 3, Magallanes Giant Telescope (GMT) director astronomer Patrick McCarthy said Magallanes will begin construction later this year and is expected to be completed by 2021.

The largest telescope in the world Magallanes

With an investment of $ 1 billion, the Magallanes telescope will be using the most advanced technology, enabling capturing 10 times more sharp images than the Hubble telescope . This work will be located in La Campana, in the Atacama desert, in northern Chile.

Magallanes telescope.(Source: t13)

When in operation in 2024, the Magallanes telescope, with a height of 25.4m, allows scientists to better observe the development of the universe, searching for planets that can survive such life. Earth, black holes, new stars, as well as planets far away from Earth are 12 to 13.2 billion light-years away.

The work consists of 7 glass blocks with diameter of 8.4m. Each block weighs 17 tons and takes 1 year for me to cool. After that, it took another 3 years to finish the surface and grind every detail carefully and meticulously.

Many major universities in the world will participate in this work such as Harvard, National University of Australia, Arizona, Texas and the Korea Space Institute along with many organizations of Chile and 11 other international partners. Currently, the committed capital amount is about USD 500 million.

Chile's Atacama Desert is where the sky is always clear for more than 300 nights a year, the humidity is extremely low and almost never hit by a storm. The European Space Research Organization in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO) voted Atacama the most ideal place in the world to observe astronomy .

Chile is also the country with the most cosmic observatories in the world with 5 stations being operated by organizations of the US, European Union (EU), Japan and Brazil. According to Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, Chile will own more than 70% of astronomical infrastructure systems in the world by 2020.

Currently the total value of telescope construction investment in Chile amounted to 6 billion USD.

Last June, Chile started the construction and installation of the E-ELT telescope on the summit of Armazones in the Atacama Desert, northern Chile. This is also considered one of the world's largest telescopes, with an investment of 1.5 billion USD.

As expected, the construction and installation of telescope E-ELT will end in 2024 and officially go into operation two years later. The world's largest telescope to date is ALMA , also located in Chile./.