The five massive new telescopes that will change astronomy forever
1. Thirty Meter Telescope, Hawaii The most powerful light telescopes today are about 10 metres or just over 30 feet in diameter. The Thirty Meter Telescope is, well, exactly what it says. This massive telescope will join 12 others already on the top of Mauna Kea in Hawaii, and a groundbreaking is scheduled for October.
The Thirty Meter Telescope will let in more light than any existing telescope, allowing astronomers to look at more distant and fainter objects in the sky. That includes exoplanets and black holes and clues let over from the early universe.
3. James Webb Space Telescope
Like its predecessor the Hubble Space Telescope, JWST will travel through space, where it won't have to deal with the distortion effects of Earth's atmosphere. Unlike the Hubble, its primary mirror is three times as big. And instead of detecting visible light, JWST is specialized to detect the infrared spectrum. That's because JWST is designed to probe the origins of the early universe.
4. Giant Magellan
Telescope, Chile 2.European Extremely Large Telescope, Chile
E-ELT will be the world's largest light telescope when it is completed a decade from now, and it can gather 13 times more light than today's telescopes. With that power, E-ELT will look for planets of distant stars and signs of dark energy among other things.
The Giant Magellan Telescope is made of seven round mirrors, which combined, are equivalent to a telescope of 25 metres or 80 feet in diameter. The mountain-top blasting at Las Campanas in Chile happened two years ago, and astronomers are now awaiting the casting and polishing of the 7 mirrors. Because of their size, each mirror can take up to four years to be cooled and polished.
Like the Thirty Meter Telescope and E-ELT, the Giant Magellan Telescope's main asset is its size. It'll also explore topics from all over physics, including exoplanets and the evolution of stars and galaxies.
5. Large Synoptic Survey Telescope,
Chile
At just 8.4 metres in diameter, the LSST might seem puny compared to other new telescopes in development. Its primary advantage is not size but speed.
From the Pachón Mountain in Chile, the LSST will scan the entire sky every few days. Over years, astronomers will have a movie of objects in the sky evolving and changing. Objects of especial interest include asteroids, supernovae and icy objects past Neptune.