This file image made by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the Eagle Nebula's "Pillars of Creation." Despite years of legal battles and months of protests by Native Hawaiian opponents, the international coalition that wants to build the world's largest telescope in Hawaii insists that the islands' highest peak, Mauna Kea, is the best place for their $1.4 billion instrument. "When the air is super stable above the site, you get images that you simply couldn't get anyplace else." "Every once in a while at Mauna Kea, you get one of those magic nights," said University of California, Santa Cruz astronomy and astrophysics professor Michael Bolte, a Thirty Meter Telescope board member. There's also no significant opposition to putting the telescope on La Palma like there is in Hawaii, where some Native Hawaiians consider the mountain sacred and have blocked trucks from hauling construction equipment to Mauna Kea's summit for more than a month.īut Hawaii has advantages that scientists say make it slightly better: higher altitude, cooler temperatures, and rare star-gazing moments that will allow the cutting-edge telescope to reach its full potential. ![]() Thirty Meter Telescope officials acknowledge that their backup site atop a peak on the Spanish Canary island of La Palma is a comparable observatory location, and that it wouldn't cost more money or take extra time to build it there. Despite years of legal battles and months of protests by Native Hawaiian opponents, the international coalition that wants to build the world's largest telescope in Hawaii insists that the islands' highest peak-Mauna Kea-is the best place for their $1.4 billion instrument.
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