IX.

New Developments

Telescope technology continues to advance in all fields of astronomy. Several new optical telescopes designed for interferometry are being built. Georgia State University’s Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA) began construction of five 3-ft (1-m) telescopes at the Mount Wilson Observatory in California in 1995. The telescopes should become operational in 2000. The United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil joined forces to build two 26-ft (8-m) telescopes, one in Mauna Kea, Hawaii, and one in Cerro Pachón, Chile, in 1996. The telescope in Mauna Kea, called Gemini North, became operational in 1999, while the telescope in Chile, called Gemini South, became operational in 2000.

A team of scientists from the University of Arizona, Ohio State University, and German and Italian astronomical research institutions cast the largest single-piece mirror ever in 1997 for the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT). The LBT was dedicated in October 2004 at the Mount Graham Observatory in Arizona. Only one of its two 27.6-ft (8.4-m) mirrors had been installed, however. When fully complete, the LBT will provide an image comparable to that of a single 75-ft (23-m) telescope.

The launch of Japan’s Space Observatory Program satellite in 1997 enhanced the radio astronomy program called the Very Long Baseline Interferometer (VLBI), creating a radio telescope larger than Earth. The satellite and about 40 Earth-based radio telescopes combine signals to produce radio images about three times clearer than was previously possible.

The Chandra X-ray Telescope, launched by NASA in July 1999, began sending images in January 2000. In its first few months of operation, it revealed numerous black holes in the centers of galaxies, including a particularly low-temperature black hole at the center of the Andromeda galaxy, a neighbor of the Milky Way.