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Giant Telescope Begins Scouring Space
MANUEL PARDELLAS - Associated Press Writer

TENERIFE, Canary Islands(AP) One of the world's largest and most powerful telescopes opened its shutters, turned its 34-foot wide mirror toward the skies and captured its first light at a mountaintop on one of Spain's Canary Islands on Saturday.

The $179 million Great Canary Telescope, designed to take advantage of pristine, clear skies at the Roque de los Muchachos observatory atop the Atlantic island of La Palma, should be fully operational by May 2008.

On a crystal-clear night, Spain's Crown Prince Felipe keyed in the computer codes which brought the observatory's complex machinery to life.

Slowly, 12 of the telescope's eventual 36 mirrors aimed at a twin star close to the Earth's northern axis, near the North Star. Twelve images merged into one as the telescope focused.

Among those in La Palma for the opening was Brian May, lead guitarist of pop group Queen, who studied part of his doctorate in astrophysics at the Canary Island institute.

May, who recently published "BANG! The Complete History of the Universe" with astronomers Patrick Moore and Chris Lintott, said he was adding the finishing touches to a musical score which will be played at the telescope's inauguration next summer.

"The GTC will be able to reach the weakest and most distant celestial objects of the universe," the institute said.

Planning for the GTC began as long ago as 1987, when the nearby William Herschel telescope with a 13.8 feet diameter mirror became operational. Construction work took seven years and involved more than 1,000 people from nearly 100 companies.

"With this (telescope) it will possible to capture the birth of new stars, to study more profoundly the characteristics of black holes or to decipher the chemical components generated by the Big Bang," the institute said.

Yup, just what we need....we can't figure things out here on earth....so we're gonna try to figure out outter space?

Quoted from bumblethru

Yup, just what we need....we can't figure things out here on earth....so we're gonna try to figure out outter space?

Well, that's exactly how OUR government works, isn't it?  They can't figure out how to keep the illegals out of this country, so what do they do, build a fence that the money was set aside for?  NO!  Instead, we'll probably be sending subsidies to foreign countries corrupt regimes to request that they make the changes that we want, especially since our workers (or at least their jobs) are already there.

the telescope is for national security.... :-/....isn't it?????

Quoted from senders

the telescope is for national security.... :-/....isn't it?????

Nope, check out the last paragraph of the article...

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"With this (telescope) it will possible to capture the birth of new stars, to study more profoundly the characteristics of black holes or to decipher the chemical components generated by the Big Bang," the institute said.

Looking for births of new stars, not watching the borders...some things are just more important.

Securing our borders is going to cost someone votes so they don't want to do it.

Fact is, there was a bill that was passed with the last congress that actually approved funding for building a fence on the U.S. / Mexico border, but for some reason, this congress has stopped it from being built.  And look how things are, people are thrown in jail for essentially a murder conviction for shooting someone that is an illegal alien coming across the border.

Dont you think they are looking for "illegal galactic aliens"........... ;D

We will probably get further with a telescope than this "war on terror/there is no cold war---WAR".......maybe they will swing it's sights onto the residents of America or 'Any Country, Planet Earth'........