{"id":172996,"date":"2023-09-28T19:26:41","date_gmt":"2023-09-29T00:26:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/09\/the-giant-magellan-telescopes-final-mirror-fabrication-begins"},"modified":"2023-09-28T19:26:41","modified_gmt":"2023-09-29T00:26:41","slug":"the-giant-magellan-telescopes-final-mirror-fabrication-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/09\/the-giant-magellan-telescopes-final-mirror-fabrication-begins","title":{"rendered":"The Giant Magellan Telescope\u2019s final mirror fabrication begins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/the-giant-magellan-telescopes-final-mirror-fabrication-begins2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Giant Magellan Telescope begins the four-year process to fabricate and polish its seventh and final primary mirror, the last required to complete the telescope\u2019s 368 square meter light collecting surface, the world\u2019s largest and most challenging optics ever produced. Together, the mirrors will collect more light than any other telescope in existence, allowing humanity to unlock the secrets of the universe by providing detailed chemical analyses of celestial objects and their origin.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, the University of Arizona Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab closed the lid on nearly 20 tons of the purest optical glass inside a one-of-a-kind oven housed beneath the stands of the Arizona Wildcats Football Stadium. The spinning oven will heat the glass to 1,165\u00b0C so as it melts, it is forced outward to form the mirror\u2019s curved paraboloid surface. Measuring 8.4-meters in diameter\u2014about two stories tall when standing on edge\u2014the mirror will cool over the next three months before moving into the polishing stage.<\/p>\n<p>At 50 million times more powerful than the human eye, \u201cthe <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/telescope\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">telescope<\/a> will make history through its future discoveries,\u201d shares Buell Jannuzi, Principal Investigator for the fabrication of the Giant Magellan Telescope primary mirror segments, Director of Steward Observatory, and Head of the Department of Astronomy at the University of Arizona. \u201cWe are thrilled to be closing in on another milestone in the fabrication of the Giant Magellan Telescope.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Giant Magellan Telescope begins the four-year process to fabricate and polish its seventh and final primary mirror, the last required to complete the telescope\u2019s 368 square meter light collecting surface, the world\u2019s largest and most challenging optics ever produced. Together, the mirrors will collect more light than any other telescope in existence, allowing humanity [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-172996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chemistry","category-cosmology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172996\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}