While the Thirty-Meter Telescope project (TMT) in Hawaii in which UC is involved remains in limbo, the LA Times reports on another telescope being removed from the site and replaced by one in Chile:
After decades of mounting tension between scientists and Native Hawaiians, Caltech has completed its removal of a telescope from the summit of Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano that is revered by the island’s Indigenous population. The decommissioning of the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory in July follows the removal of a University of Hawaii observatory a month earlier, and comes amid a cultural resurgence among Native Hawaiians.
“Nothing is forever,” said Gregory Chun, the executive director of the Center for Maunakea Stewardship at the University of Hawaii and a Native Hawaiian...
Prized for its altitude, dark skies and low humidity, Mauna Kea still hosts 11 other telescopes. Although the facilities have brought Hawaii international acclaim in astronomy and have helped to boost the local economy, Native Hawaiians have long regarded the summit as their spiritual connection to the heavens.
Protests erupted at the base of the mountain in 2019, when Caletch and the University of California proposed construction of another observatory called the Thirty Meter Telescope. The outcry led the state to shift oversight responsibilities from the University of Hawaii — which leased the land to Caltech — to the new Maunakea Stewardship Oversight Authority, which is composed of local, environmental and scientific stakeholders...
Throughout the process, cultural observers were present to ensure deconstruction was done in a respectful way, and while the new authority was not involved in the decommissioning process, Caltech invited members to perform cultural ceremonies at its conclusion.
...Over its roughly three decades of observations, the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory has played a key role in several scientific breakthroughs in astrophysics. The observatory was first designed to detect some of the most unexplored wavelengths of light,between a third of a millimeter and one millimeter — much longer than visible light. The telescope, with its fellow Mauna Kea resident the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, discovered that Earth is basking in light from excited molecules living quietly in interstellar space... Now, the Caltech telescope moves to Chile with a new name (the Leighton Chajnantor Telescope), new instruments and the opportunity to reestablish itself on the cutting edge of astronomy.
...Despite criticisms, the telescopes do help the state economically, and they support science and engineering on the islands as many of Hawaii’s young people are leaving to pursue degrees in these fields...
Full story at https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2024-08-02/caltech-dismantles-observatory-atop-sacred-hawaiian-mountain.
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