12/22/2023 0 Comments Thirty meter telescope site![]() ![]() Because of the surrounding controversy, the university’s management has been evaluated several times by the Department of Land and Natural Resources and found to be deficient. The summit is called Wao Akua - “the place where the gods reside” - and is seen as a place where humans don’t belong.īut since 1968, there have been people atop the mountain every day under the management of the University of Hawai’i. They explained the volcano is a sacred religious site known as the piko, or the umbilical cord that connects the earth and sky. “The land is your family and Mauna Kea is the ancestor,” said Vero Caveroegusquiza, who chairs Mauna Kea Protectors at UCSB. Protests have continued since, even drawing celebrity support from Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Bruno Mars, and Jason Momoa. Construction halted in early April 2015 when hundreds of protestors blocked workers from traveling up the mountain, resulting in 31 people being arrested. “You want the move to an order of better magnitude.” “They want to move to something that is not just a little bit better than the big facilities we have now,” Lombardi said. ![]() Though the Hawaiian telescope has been surrounded by controversy, Lombardi said it is a necessary next step, regardless of size or cost. It’s an exciting prospect for astronomers like Lisa Storrie-Lombardi, who said that TMT “opens up a new parameter space that we can’t get with 10-meter-class telescopes on the ground.” Storrie-Lombardi directs Las Cumbres Observatory, an international network of telescopes headquartered in Goleta. They were joined by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation in 2003 Japan, China, India, and Canada also have a stake in the project. For astrophysicists, the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) is a next-generation instrument with which to explore the first sources of light and heavy elements, black holes, and extrasolar planets along with their formation processes, the TMT website states.Ĭaltech partnered with the University of California 23 years ago to plan the premier telescope. The University of California is required to contribute $107,223,485 from 2014 to 2024, UCSB’s student-run newspaper the Daily Nexus reported.Īs of 2020, the UC had already invested over $68 million in the telescope that will be joining the other 13 already atop the mountain. The Mauna Kea Protectors - which also formed at UCLA and UC Berkeley - are backed by the UC Student Association’s first campaign for “Students Enacting Environmental Defense.” Though they are petitioning against the telescope and surveying ways to reinvest the funds in Indigenous communities, it could be all for naught. ![]() “They say, ‘Oh, it’s just one more telescope’ like it excuses the continued abuse of Indigenous people,” Vasquez said during a recent presentation. The UC and its boardmembers usually keep a tight lid on the project, but students like Mariela Vasquez from Mauna Kea Protectors at UC Santa Barbara want to tell them how wrong they are. ![]()
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