AP News, July 13th, 2007
One of the world's most powerful telescopes will be trained on the skies on Friday, searching for planets similar to our own from a mountaintop on one of Spain's Canary Islands.
Perched 2,400 meters up on the Roque de los Muchachos peak in the Atlantic island of La Palma, the Great Canary Telescope has a 34.1 feet lens. It is to receive its so-called "first light" _ when the telescope is pointed toward the sky and focusses on the North Star _ at 11 p.m. in a ceremony attended by Crown Prince Felipe.
"The GTC will be able to reach the weakest and most distant celestial objects of the universe," the Canary Islands Astrophysics Institute said in a statement.
"One of its aims is to find planets similar to ours in other solar systems," the institute added.
The telescope will have 36 hexagonal mirrors, of which 12 are already in place.
According to the institute, once the telescope has had its first light, work will begin on placing and adjusting the remaining 24 mirrors to leave it fully functional for scientists within a year.
"With this (telescope) it will possible to capture the birth of new stars, to study more profoundly the characteristics of the black holes or to decipher the chemical components generated by the Big Bang," the Institute said in a statement.
The telescope cost euro104 million ($143 million) and seven years to construct. The Canary Island observatory said institutes in Mexico and the United States collaborated in the project, involving more than 1,000 people in nearly 100 companies.
Among those in La Palma for the inauguration was Brian May, lead guitarist of the legendary pop group Queen, who studied for some his doctorate in astrophysics at the Canary Island institute.
The Great Canary Telescope is among the world's largest telescopes. Others are the Southern African Large Telescope, or Salt, which has an 11-meter mirror and has been described the southern hemisphere's largest single optical telescope. Another one is the Hobby-Eberly on Mount Fowlkes, Texas, also has an 36-foot mirror.
The Canary institute is considered one of the most important in the world of astrophysics owing to the special geographical situation of the islands, located off the northwest coast of Africa, and the transparency and the astronomical quality of their sky.
