The twin of Hawaii's giant Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea has become operational in the Chilean Andes, allowing astronomers to see the entire sky in both northern and southern hemispheres. Big Isle telescope’s twin
dedicated in S. AmericaAstronomers can now observe
the sky in both hemispheresStar-Bulletin staff
The Gemini South telescope officially opened Friday on the remote 8,895-foot summit of Cerro Pachon.
Seven nations joined in the $184 million twin observatory project to obtain extremely sharp images of the universe in the infrared waveband. This allows astronomers to see through cosmic dust obscuring star-forming regions and violent galaxies so they can probe inner secrets of stellar birth and mysteries of the universe.
The main mirror of each telescope is 8.1 meters or 26.5 feet across. Each telescope has an optical capability with 10 times the light-gathering power of the Hubble Space Telescope.
High technology "adaptive optics" instruments "take the twinkling out of stars" to produce images as sharp as those from space.
"Today's dedication celebrates a decade of work by hundreds of people to build these two telescopes that have now become one observatory," said Gemini Observatory director Matt Mountain.
He said a milestone was reached about a month ago when both telescopes made observations at the same time, but in parts of the sky inaccessible to each other.
Both telescopes have new technologies that allow large, relatively thin mirrors to collect and focus both optical and infrared radiation from space. Adaptive optics correct for distortions caused by the Earth's atmosphere.
Gemini North on Mauna Kea in 1999 discovered unexpected conditions surrounding a supermassive black hole at the core of an active galaxy and regions of gas and dust circling stars where early planetary systems might be forming.
Hawaii's Gemini also produced a detailed picture of the center of the Milky Way galaxy, the closest brown dwarf ever imaged around a sun-like star and an image dubbed "the perfect spiral galaxy."
The Gemini Observatory
UH Institute for Astronomy