Giant Magellan Telescope

The Giant Magellan Telescope is the most optically proficient of the extremely large telescopes, providing the highest image resolution over the widest field of view of the Universe, and incorporating seven of the world’s largest mirrors. The telescope is under construction at Las Campanas Observatory at the southern edge of Chile’s Atacama Desert, one of the best locations on Earth from which to explore the heavens. Commissioning is anticipated in the late 2020s.

The Giant Magellan Telescope is part of a partnership with NSF’s NOIRLab and the Thirty Meter Telescope that forms the US Extremely Large Telescope Program. Together, the two telescopes will provide more light-collecting surface area than any planned or existing telescope, with the added benefits of combined locations that allow access to the entire sky. Being situated in substantially different time zones on the globe will allow the two telescopes to observe astronomical phenomena for longer spans of time with their powerful and complementary instrument suites.

The Giant Magellan Telescope is the work of an international consortium of thirteen research institutions representing the United States, South Korea, Israel, Chile, Brazil, and Australia. Consortium members include Arizona State University, Astronomy Australia Ltd., Australian National University, Carnegie Institution for Science, Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo — FAPESP, Harvard University, Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, Smithsonian Institution, Texas A&M University, The University of Texas at Austin, University of Arizona, University of Chicago, and the Weizmann Institute of Science. The Giant Magellan Telescope is being designed, built, and operated by the GMTO Corporation, a nonprofit organization with offices in Pasadena, California and Santiago, Chile.

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