User:Planetaryperea/Thirty Meter Telescope

Edit Summary: Thirty Meter Telescope

Opposition to Construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope in the Canary Islands

'''Because of the ongoing protests that re-erupted in July 2019, the TMT project officials requested a building permit for a second site choice, the Spanish island of La Palma in the Canary Islands. Rafael Rebolo, the director of the Canary Islands Astrophysics Institute, confirmed that he had received a letter requesting a building permit for the site as a backup in case the Hawaii site cannot be constructed. Some astronomers argue however that La Palma is not an adequate site to build the telescope due to the island’s comparatively low elevation, which would enable water vapor to frequently interfere with observations due to water vapor’s tendency to absorb light at midinfrared wavelengths. Such atmospheric interference could impact observing times for research into exoplanets, galactic formation, and cosmology. Other astronomers argue that construction of the telescope in La Palma would disrupt projected international collaboration between the United States and other involved countries such as Japan, Canada, and France.'''

[New Indent]

'''Environmentalists such as Ben Magec and the environmental advocacy organization Ecologistas en Acción in the Canary Islands are gearing up to fight against its construction there as well. According to EEA spokesperson Pablo Bautista, the projected TMT construction area in the Canary Islands exists inside a protected conversation refuge which hosts at least three archeological sites of the indigenous Guanche people, who lived on the islands for thousands of years before Spanish colonization. On July 29, 2021, Judge Roi López Encinas of the High Court of Justice of the Canary Islands, revoked the 2017 concession of public lands by local authorities for the TMT construction. Encinas ruled that the land concessions were invalid as they were not covered by an international treaty on scientific research and that the TMT International Observatory consortium did not express concrete intent to build on the La Palma site as opposed to the site in Mauna Kea.'''

[New Indent]

On July 19, 2022, The National Science Foundation announced it will carry out a new environmental survey of the possible impacts of the construction of the Thirty Metter Telescope at proposed building sites at both Mauna Kea and at the Canary Islands. Continued funding for the telescope will not be considered prior to the results of the environmental survey, updates on the project's technical readiness, and comments from the public.