Construction to begin on unique ground-based telescope
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.028151
Science : Now that NSF has released the first installment of construction funding, work on building the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope in Chile is about to begin. The telescope is notable for its unusual design: It will have three mirrors instead of the usual two. The result will be a very wide field of view, which will allow the telescope to photograph the entire sky every few nights. Among the project’s goals are the detection of faint astronomical objects, transient optical events such as supernovae, and evidence of possible dark matter and dark energy. One of the biggest challenges will be how to manage the large volume of data the telescope will produce once it begins operating around the year 2020.
