The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation is granting $200-million to the California Institute of Technology and the University of California for the development of the Thirty-Meter Telescope, university officials announced today. The funds are being divided equally between the two institutions.
The telescope is expected to help astronomers pursue a wide array of projects, such as analyzing light from the first stellar systems born after the Big Bang, studying the formation of planets around nearby stars, and discovering the physical processes that govern the evolution of galaxies.
The project is a collaboration between Caltech, the University of California, and the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy. It has been estimated that it will cost at least $700-million to complete. —Erin Strout
