The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) presented its first in-person Exploring Your Universe (EYU) science fair in three years on November 6, 2022. About 12,000 visitors of all ages and backgrounds came to UCLA from the greater LA community.
TMT’s Multi-Objective Diffraction-limited High-resolution Infrared Spectrograph (MODHIS), a first-light instrument, has successfully completed the first phase of its conceptual design. MODHIS will take advantage of the large collecting area and TMT’s unprecedented angular resolution to dramatically advance a broad range of science programs, such as the search and characterization of exoplanets, the study of the environment of supermassive...
TMT’s Wide-Field Optical Spectrometer (WFOS), one of its three first-light instruments, successfully completed its Conceptual Design Review in February 2022. This review completed the conceptual design phase and ushered WFOS into its Preliminary Design Phase.
The decadal survey for astronomy and astrophysics is a powerful study that our community uses to drive strategy and vision for the next decade of federally funded transformative science. The 2020 report, Pathways to Discovery in Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 2020s (Astro2020), was published by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine on 4 November 2021. We are honored that the community, via the decadal survey, has...
Today, the National Academies released the Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey (Astro2020) with its recommendations for implementing a strategy and vision for the coming decade of U.S. Astronomy & Astrophysics frontier research.
Henry Yang, Board Chair, Thirty Meter Telescope International Observatory, issued the following statement in response to today’s release of the Pathways to Discovery in Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 2020s Decadal Survey:
TMT recently achieved a major project milestone, with a review Board, mainly composed of external reviewers, concluding that its plans for Observatory Operations, Commissioning and Data-Management (OCDM) have reached sufficient maturity at this stage of the project design. Concretely, this positive preliminary review means that TMT’s operations plans are ready for the next rounds of Project reviews, which will assess not only operations but...
TMT’s Science Advisory Committee (SAC), which has been meeting bi-monthly since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, recently met to address the project status, its scientific potential and suitable instrumentation. The SAC is composed of representatives from each TMT partner who advise the Project on TMT’s design, strategies and operational matter that can have a significant impact on TMT science.
Many Congratulations to Andrea Ghez on the award of the Physics 2020 Nobel Prize for her work on the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way.
An important project for the global astronomy community, TMT is working collaboratively with the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) and the National Science Foundation’s (NSF’s) National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab) to develop a U.S.-Extremely Large Telescope Program (US-ELTP).
