TMT: Negotiations begin to install the largest telescope in the Northern Hemisphere in Spain sciences

The largest telescope in the Northern Hemisphere is now a little closer to Spain. The Thirty Meter Telescope Consortium has just announced that it is exploring bringing the facility to the island of La Palma, in the Canary Islands, following a “generous offer” from the Spanish Ministry of Science.

In July, the Minister for Science, Innovation and Universities, Diana Morant, pledged €400 million for the facility to be built on the island of La Palma, in the Canary Islands. If the bid finally convinces the consortium controlling the project, Spain will be the headquarters of the largest optical observatory in the Northern Hemisphere, which will replace the Gran Telescopio de Canaria.

The body supervising the project, which has a total cost of 3,000 million euros, said the offer represents an “opportunity” to turn it into reality. Although the final location has not yet been determined, the organization announced today that it will “jointly with the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities develop a detailed roadmap towards the potential investigation of a TMT at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (La Palma, Spain).”

The project, promoted by the United States and initially located on the island of Hawaii, is on a tightrope because Donald Trump’s government canceled its funding. This reduction is the clearest opportunity Spain has had to restore this state-of-the-art facility, as La Palma has already been chosen as an alternative location due to the quality of its skies.

The construction of the TMT in the United States faces fierce opposition from indigenous people, because it will be built on Mauna Kea, a sacred mountain for them, where several first-class observatories already exist. In 2019, the Telescope Consortium, made up of Japan, Canada, India and several US universities, including California, decided to move forward with this site. But the Trump administration decided not to spend another dollar on this project, diverting $1.6 billion to another major astronomy project, the Giant Magellan Telescope, scheduled to be built in Chile. The decision was surprising, as both projects had been recommended by a committee of American scientists.

The initiative now faces a great deal of uncertainty. About a billion dollars have already been spent on the design of the project, and another thousand million have been secured, but another thousand million dollars are needed to be able to build it, as the director of the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands, Valentin Martínez Belet, explained to El Pais newspaper. Al-Falaki believes that the way to obtain the 600 million that are still missing is through a European initiative that guarantees full funding for the construction, which will take 10 years.

Choosing La Palma would balance the balance of global astronomy. The largest observatories in the world are in Chile, the country where the European Southern Observatory is headquartered, where the Very Large Telescope and the Magellan Telescope are also being built. If the TMT eventually goes to Hawaii, the skies of the Northern Hemisphere will be left unobserved, leaving aside potentially important discoveries of, for example, the discovery of a second Earth.

Advocates of the Canary Islands option stress that TMT can begin construction immediately, as the project has all the necessary permits, valid until September 2026.

The project will be essential for the island’s economy, especially after the catastrophic Tagugit volcano eruption. It will leave about 400 million euros in construction and generate about 150 jobs for observatory operators, and several tens of millions of euros in operations each year, according to IAC calculations. The project would double astronomy’s contribution to the island’s GDP to 6%. The Spanish bet also carries a sense of emergency: If the TMT does not arrive, the island’s astronomical facilities will become obsolete in about 10 years, the IAC director has warned.

The food scraps started on Mauna Kea, Hawaii’s highest mountain, in 2014, and never got off the ground. Opponents closed roads and stopped construction work. The project was criticized with a campaign of lies on social media, such as that the facility was a laser weapon controlled by China or that it would be powered by nuclear power. At the same time, a long legal battle began that ended in 2019. However, construction has been completely halted until now.

In Spain, the project has always enjoyed the support of all relevant institutions at all levels. Former Science Minister Pedro Duque did his best to bring TMT to the Canary Islands. After a budget setback in the United States, the project to house this facility became possible again, and IAC began knocking on the doors of the authorities to revive it.