Giant Magellan Telescope

Thanks to a $1.75 million gift from Cynthia and George Mitchell ('40), Texas A&M University is one of eight, high-profile partners in the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT). The $500 million state-of-the-art, next-generation wonder will produce images up to 10 times sharper than those of the Hubble and help launch Texas A&M into an academic area where it's never been before - astronomy.

The product of more than a century of astronomical research and telescope-building by some of the world's leading research institutions, the GMT is expected to open a new window on the universe for the 21st century. Scheduled for completion around 2016 in Chile, it will have the resolving power of a 24.5-meter (80 foot) primary mirror - far larger than any other telescope ever built. As such, it will answer many of the questions at the forefront of astrophysics today as it poses new and unanticipated riddles for future generations of astronomers.

• Carnegie Institution
• Harvard University
• Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
• University of Michigan
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• University of Arizona
• University of Texas at Austin
• Texas A&M University

Complete information on the Giant Megellan Telescope can be found at http://www.gmto.org/