All posts by Drummer

New Horizons Spacecraft Rapidly Approaching Encounter with Pluto

All Posts, Planetary science, Spacecraft and Missions, ,

Peter Lobner

New Horizons is rapidly approaching Pluto for a fast fly-by encounter with closest approach at 7:49 am on Tuesday, 14 July 2015. You’ll find basic information about the New Horizons mission in my 14 March 2015 post on this subject. Detailed information is available at the NASA New Horizons mission website at the following link:

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html

The spacecraft will fly past Pluto at 30,800 mph (49,600 kph), and is expected to fly within 7,750 miles (11,265 km) of Pluto’s surface. The close-encounter segment of the flyby is quite brief, as shown in the following diagram of New Horizon’s trajectory through the Pluto system.

New Horizons trajectorySource: NASA/Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

On 9 July, New Horizon’s Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (Lorri) took the following photo from a range of 3.3 million miles. Some basic surface features have been noted by the NASA project team, along with a diagram indicating Pluto’s north pole, equator, and central meridian.

Pluto pic 1

Source: NASA/Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

On 11 July, the project team released the following slightly more detailed photo that reveals linear features that may be cliffs, as well as a circular feature that could be an impact crater.

Pluto pic 2

Source: NASA/Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

Below is a photo released on 9 July showing both Pluto and it’s largest moon, Charon, which orbit each other around their common center of gravity. You’ll find more information on the unusual orbital interactions among Pluto and it’s five known moons in my 6 June 2015 post on that subject.

Pluto pic 3

Source: NASA/Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

New Report Quantifies the Value of Nuclear Power Plants to the U.S. Economy and Their Contribution to Limiting Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions

All Posts, Economy, Global Climate, Power Generating Technology - Nuclear, , , , ,

Peter Lobner

On 2 July 2015, I made a long post entitled, “EPA Clean Power Plan Proposed Rule Does Not Adequately Recognize the Role of Nuclear Power in Greenhouse Gas Reduction.”

On 7 July 2015, Nuclear Matters (http://www.nuclearmatters.com) issued a related,  comprehensive report, prepared by economists from The Brattle Group (http://www.brattle.com), that quantifies the significant value of nuclear power plants to the U.S. economy and the contribution made to limiting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Their report’s findings include:

  • U.S. nuclear energy plants contribute $60 billion annually to gross domestic product (GDP), in addition to other economic and societal benefits.
  • The nuclear industry accounts for about 475,000 full-time jobs (direct and secondary).
  • Energy generated from nuclear plants avoids emissions that otherwise would have been generated by fossil power plants.
    • 573 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, worth an additional $25 billion annually if valued at the U.S. government’s estimate for the social cost of carbon.
    • 650,000 tons of nitrogen oxides (NOX) and over one million tons of sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions annually, together valued at $8.4 billion using the National Academy of Science’s externality estimates.
  • Nuclear power helps keep electricity prices low. Without nuclear power, retail electricity rates could increase by about 6% on average. Keeping electricity prices low is the primary means by which nuclear power boosts the economy.
  • Provides $10 billion in federal tax revenues and $2.2 billion in state tax revenues annually.

You can download the report, entitled, “The Nuclear Industry’s Contribution to the U.S. Economy” at the link below.  The report also describes the modeling techniques used to estimate economic value with and without the contributions from nuclear power.

http://www.brattle.com/system/news/pdfs/000/000/895/original/The_Nuclear_Industry’s_Contribution_to_the_U.S._Economy.pdf?1436280444

Brattle-Group-nuc-power-economics-report-7-Jul-15 R1

U.S. Drought Indicators Derived From GRACE Satellite Data

All Posts, Global Climate, Remote Sensing, Spacecraft and Missions, Water Resources, , , , , , ,

Peter Lobner

Scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center generate groundwater and soil moisture drought indicators each week. They are based on terrestrial water storage observations derived from GRACE satellite data and integrated with other observations, using a sophisticated numerical model of land surface water and energy processes. You can see current results for the continental U.S. at the following link to the National Drought Mitigation Center (NMDC), University of Nebraska-Lincoln, website:

http://drought.unl.edu/MonitoringTools/NASAGRACEDataAssimilation.aspx

Drought indicator maps for 6 July 2015 are reproduced below for:

  • Surface soil moisture
  • Root zone soil moisture
  • Shallow groundwater

The drought in the U.S. West looks most severe in the shallow groundwater map.

You can find information on the twin GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellites at the following link:

http://www.csr.utexas.edu/grace/

GRACE_6Jul15_SFSM

GRACE_6Jul15_RTZSM

GRACE_6Jul15_GWS

Bacteria Could Help Clean Groundwater Contaminated With Uranium

All Posts, Biology, Nuclear Cleanup, Water Resources, , , ,

Peter Lobner

On 15 June 2015, Rutgers University announced the discovery in uranium-contaminated groundwater of bacteria that can breathe uranium and employ it in a reduction chemical reaction that immobilizes the uranium and thereby removes it from solution in the groundwater. Professor Lee Kerkhof, in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, leads the Rutgers team that is working with U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) researchers on this project.

The bacteria were discovered in soil at an old uranium ore mill site in Rifle, Colorado, almost 200 miles west of Denver. The bacteria of interest are from a common class known as betaproteobacteria.

Rifle CO uranium mill siteThe Rifle, CO site today. Source: news.slac.stanford.edu

The Rutgers University announcement states:

 “This bacterium can breathe either oxygen or uranium to drive the chemical reactions that provide life-giving energy”.

 “Exactly how the strain evolved, Kerkhof said, ‘we are not sure.’ But, he explained, bacteria have the ability to pass genes to each other. So just like bacteria pick up resistance to things like antibiotics and heavy metal toxicity, this bacterium ‘picked up a genetic element that’s now allowing it to detoxify uranium, to actually grow on uranium.’ “

You can read the Rutgers University announcement at the following link:

http://news.rutgers.edu/research-news/bacteria-could-help-clean-groundwater-contaminated-uranium-ore-processing-rutgers-study-finds/20150614#.VZcuR4sUyOI

You can read the April 2015 Rutgers paper, Spatial Distribution of an Uranium-Respiring Betaproteobacterium at the Rifle, CO Field Research Site, at the following link:

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0123378

An earlier paper published in October 2011, entitled, Influence of Uranium on Bacterial Communities: A Comparison of Natural Uranium-Rich Soils with Controls, identified Acidobacteria, Proteobacteria, and seven others phyla in uraniferous samples. This French study, supported by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, concluded that:

 “…our results demonstrate that uranium exerts a permanent high pressure on soil bacterial communities and suggest the existence of a uranium redox cycle mediated by bacteria in the soil.”

You can read the paper written by the French team at the following link:

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0025771

2015 DARPA Robotics Challenge Results

All Posts, Robotics, ,

Peter Lobner

Twenty-three teams competed in the 2015 DARPA Robotics Challenge, which was held June 5-6, 2015, at Fairplex in Pomona, CA.  The winner was Team KAIST from the Republic of Korea, and its robot DRC-Hubo.

drc-hubo-standing-rolling-1433820657680 Source: DARPA

An assessment of how DRC-Hubo won the 2015 DARPA Robotics Challenge appears on the IEEE Spectrum website, which you can read at the following link:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/humanoids/how-kaist-drc-hubo-won-darpa-robotics-challenge

The results of the 2015 DARPA Robotics Challenge are listed in the following table:

2015 DARPA Robotics Challenge results  Source: DARPA

You can view information on all of these teams and their robots on the DARPA website at the following link:

http://www.theroboticschallenge.org/teams

Congratulations to all teams for their efforts in advancing robotics technology and special congratulations to Team KAIST for winning the 2015 DARPA Robotics Challenge.

28 July 2016 Update:  What was the outcome of DRC?

I looked for a good explanation of the outcome of the 2015 DARPA Robotics Challenge and didn’t find much of an answer until I came across the 6 July 2015 article entitled, “The DARPA Robotics Challenge was a Bust,” posted on the Popular Science website at the following link:

http://www.popsci.com/darpa-robotics-challenge-was-bust-why-darpa-needs-try-again

The author, Erik Sofge, noted that, in 2012, DARPA originally proposed the following tasks for the DRC:

  1. Get into a standard human vehicle and drive it to a specified location.
  2. Get out of the vehicle and travel across rubble.
  3. Clear obstacles from a doorway.
  4. Open the door, and enter the building.
  5. Find a leaking pipe and close the associated valve.
  6. Reconnect a hose or cable.
  7. Climb a ladder.
  8. Grab a tool from the site, break through a concrete wall and exit.

At the 2013 DRC Trials in Miami, poor robot performance indicated the need to redefine most of these tasks. For the DRC Finals, all but one of the eight tasks had been greatly simplified. In his article, Eric Sofge provides a task-by-task breakdown of the DRC Finals, which I think you will find quite revealing.

Eric Sofge suggests a logical follow-on to DRC, which would be another competition with the following attributes:

  • Robots are required to demonstrate that they can fall, recover on their own, and demonstrate durability.
  • New tasks, including tasks closer in complexity to the originally proposed DRC tasks, should significantly raise the bar for expected robot performance.

It’s interesting to note that the NASA / JPL robot Valkyrie, which earned zero points in the 2013 DRC Trials, did not compete in the 2015 DRC Finals. However, Valkyrie was present at the DRC Finals to promote the new NASA Space Robotics Challenge (SRC). Valkyrie (aka R5) and another NASA robot, Robonaut 2, are being groomed to support space exploration. See my 6 July 2016 post for more information on the NASA SRC.

Solar Impulse 2 Completes Record Solo, Non-Stop, Solar-Powered Flight from Nagoya, Japan to Oahu, Hawaii

Aeronautical, All Posts,

Peter Lobner

After a 118 hour solo, non-stop, solar-powered flight from Nagoya, Japan, pilot Andre Borschberg landed the Solar Impulse 2 aircraft at Kalaeloa, a small airport outside Honolulu, Hawaii.  During this flight,  Borschberg broke the world records for longest distance and duration for solar aviation, and the world record for the longest solo flight ever.  Solar Impulse 2 remained airborne for 5 consecutive days and nights, producing its own power with solar energy.

2015_07_03_Solar_Impulse_2_RTW_7th_Flight_Nagoya_to_Hawaii_landing_revillard_05706-7

Photo source: Solarimpulse.com

Key parameters of this remarkable, record-breaking flight is listed below:

Time of departure: 26 June 2015 18:03 UTC
Time of arrival: 3 July 2015 15:55 UTC
Flight time: 4 Days, 21 Hours, 52 Minutes
Distance: 7,212 km (4,481 miles)
Maximum altitude: 8,634 m (28,326 ft)
Average ground speed: 61.19 km/h (38.03 mph)

Each day (solar cycle), Solar Impulse 2 was flown on a trajectory that entailed: (1) using solar power during the day to run the engines, gain altitude, and charge the batteries, and then (2) using batteries to run the engines while gradually gliding down to lower altitudes at night.

This flight was Leg 8 of a planned around-the-world solar-powered journey that began in Abu Dhabi. The preceding seven legs are listed below:

The next planned legs are:

  •  Leg 9: Hawaii to Phoenix, AZ
  • Leg 10: Phoenix to mid-USA
  • Leg 11: mid-USA to New York
  • Leg 12: New York to Europe
  • Leg 13: Europe to Abu Dhabi

Refer to my 10 March 2015 post for a quick look at the Solar Impulse 2 aircraft and a link to more design details on the Solar Impulse website. Visit the website below for a detailed look at this remarkable effort, including an index to the website.

http://www.solarimpulse.com/multimedia-leg-12

I hope you will follow the remainder of the Solar Impulse team’s efforts to complete this pioneering journey around the world on solar power.

EPA Clean Power Plan Proposed Rule Does Not Adequately Recognize the Role of Nuclear Power in Greenhouse Gas Reduction

All Posts, Global Climate, Power Generating Technology - Alternate, Power Generating Technology - Fossil, Power Generating Technology - Nuclear, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Peter Lobner

On June 2, 2014, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed what they called, “a common sense plan to cut carbon pollution from power plants.”  You can access the Clean Power Plan Proposed Rule and many related documents at the following EPA link:

http://www2.epa.gov/carbon-pollution-standards/clean-power-plan-proposed-rule

This Plan proposes to limit carbon emissions from existing fossil fuel fired electric generating units, including steam generating, integrated gasification combined cycle, or stationary combustion turbines (in either simple-cycle or combined-cycle configuration) operating or under construction by January 8, 2014. Main points of the Clean Power Plan include:

  • Wind and solar power are the preferred EPA options.
  • Natural gas is an interim solution.
  • New nuclear capacity is not a compliance option.
  • The EPA allows compliance credit for:
    • New nuclear plants currently under construction, and
    • Preservation of existing nuclear plants that might otherwise be retired

I’ve already formed my opinion on the Clean Power Plan. To help you form your opinion, I recommend that you refer to the following recent analyses by four respected government and industry organizations that have reviewed the Clean Power Plan.

Institute for Energy Research (IER)

On 15 June 2015, the IER issued the results of their analysis entitled, EPA’s Clean Power Plan Ignores New Nuclear as a Compliance Option. IER concluded that the compliance formulae in the Clean Power Plan are biased toward new wind and solar power development. Deployment of these technologies, which currently are not capable of delivering reliable capacity, will decrease the reliability of the electric grid. IER also concluded that the Clean Power Plan will result in much higher electricity prices for all American consumers, while having only a marginal impact on global temperature based on EPA’s computer models.

You can read the IER analysis at the following link:

http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/epas-clean-power-plan-ignores-new-nuclear-as-a-compliance-option/

National Association of Clean Air Agencies (NACAA)

On 21 May 2015, the NACAA issued a report entitled, Implementing EPA’s Clean Power Plan: A Menu of Options, containing 25 chapters, each of which explores a particular approach to greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction in the electric power sector.  NACAA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit association of air pollution control agencies in 41 states, the District of Columbia, four territories and 116 metropolitan areas.  Each chapter of their Menu of Options includes a brief descriptions of: (1) the option and it’s pros and cons; (2) the regulatory backdrop, policy underpinnings, implementation experience, and GHG reduction potential associated with the option; and (3) benefits of the option to society and the utility system, including costs and cost-effectiveness. In the last chapter, a variety of emerging technologies and other policy options for reducing GHG emissions are addressed.

An interesting table and two figures included in Chapter 6 of the Menu of Options are reproduced below.

NACAA Table 6-1 Source: NACAA

In 2012, electric power generation technologies with zero or low GHG emissions accounted for 31.4% of the USA’s total generating capacity. The data in Table 6-1 shows that 82.2% of the zero or low GHG emission generating capacity came from nuclear and hydroelectric power plants. The remaining low-emission generation capacity came from biomass, wind, geothermal, and solar power plants.

NACAA Figure 6-3Source: NACAA

In Figure 6-3, “life cycle GHG emissions” include those associated with operation as well as construction, fabrication, and fuel processing.  While nuclear power is not included among the “technologies powered by renewable resources”, it’s clear in Figure 6-3 that nuclear power meets the GHG reduction performance of the other technologies using renewable resources.

NACAA Figure 6-7  Source: NACAA

In Figure 6-7, note the relative cost-of-energy differential between nuclear power and fossil power. This difference makes it difficult for nuclear power plants to compete head-to-head with coal and natural gas merchant power plants and encourages the early retirement of some nuclear power plants on economic grounds.  While most renewable power sources have even higher costs-of-energy, various financial schemes subsidize their power generation.

You can download individual chapters or the entire NACAA Menu of Options at the following link:

http://www.4cleanair.org/NACAA_Menu_of_Options

U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

On 22 May 2015, the EIA released their analysis of the Clean Power Plan. The EIA analysis supports the IER finding that the Clean Power Plan will result in much higher electricity prices for all American consumers, even in a scenario that allows GHG reduction credit for new nuclear generation.

You can read the EIA press release at the following link:

http://www.eia.gov/analysis/requests/powerplants/cleanplan/

You also can download a PDFs copy of the May 2015 EIA report, Analysis of the Impacts of the Clean Power Plan, at the following link:

http://www.eia.gov/analysis/requests/powerplants/cleanplan/pdf/powerplant.pdf

Nuclear Energy Institute’s (NEI)

To address the “clean power” attributes of nuclear power, I refer you to an NEI Knowledge Center webpage: Environment: Emissions Prevented, which you will find at the following link:

http://www.nei.org/Knowledge-Center/Nuclear-Statistics/Environment-Emissions-Prevented

Here you’ll find a link to data on the amount of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and carbon dioxide emissions avoided in the U.S. during the years 1995 to 2014 by virtue of having about 20% of U.S. electric power generated by nuclear power plants instead of fossil power plants. NEI reports the total avoided emissions for this period as follows:

  • Sulfur dioxide: 57.75 million short tons (52.4 million metric tons)
  • Nitrogen oxides: 22.92 million short tons (20.8 million metric tons)
  • Carbon dioxide: 13,063.6 million short tons (11,851 million metric tons)

On this website, NEI states:

“Nuclear energy facilities avoided 595 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2014 across the U.S. This is nearly as much carbon dioxide as is released from nearly 135 million cars, which is more than all U.S. passenger cars. The U.S. produces more than five billion metric tons of carbon dioxide each year.

Without the emission avoidances from nuclear generation, required reductions in the U.S. would increase by more than 50 percent to achieve targets under the Kyoto Protocol.”

2013 paper, “Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power”.

Supporting the above NEI position on the GHG reduction merits of nuclear power, there is a related 2013 article by NASA scientists from Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University entitled, “Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power”.  You can read a short article on this paper on the Scientific American website at the following link:

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/nuclear-power-may-have-saved-1-8-million-lives-otherwise-lost-to-fossil-fuels-may-save-up-to-7-million-more/

You also can read the complete paper at the following link:

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/es3051197

In their study, authors Pushker A. Kharecha and James E. Hansen used historical production data from 1971 to 2009 and calculated that global nuclear power has prevented an average of 1.84 million air pollution-related deaths and 64 gigatonnes of CO2-equivalent (GtCO2-eq) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that would have resulted from fossil fuel burning. From their analysis, the authors drew the following conclusion:

“In conclusion, it is clear that nuclear power has provided a large contribution to the reduction of global mortality and GHG emissions due to fossil fuel use. If the role of nuclear power significantly declines in the next few decades, the International Energy Agency asserts that achieving a target atmospheric GHG level of 450 ppm CO2-eq would require “heroic achievements in the deployment of emerging low- carbon technologies, which have yet to be proven. Countries that rely heavily on nuclear power would find it particularly challenging and significantly more costly to meet their targeted levels of emissions.”

So, what do you think about the EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan? Is this the “common sense plan to cut carbon pollution from power plants” promised by EPA; a politically motivated piece of crap designed to kill the nuclear and coal power industries; or something in between?

NASA Announces New Findings on the Behaviors of Pluto and Its Five Known Moons

All Posts, Astronomy, , , , , ,

Peter Lobner

On 28 May 2015, NASA presented surprising information, derived from observations by the Hubble Space Telescope, on the behaviors of Pluto and it’s five known moons: Charon, Hydra, Nix, Kerberos, and Styx. Details of the study were reported in the paper, “Resonant Interactions and Chaotic Rotation of Pluto’s Small Moons,” by Douglas Hamilton and Mark Showalter, in the 3 June 2015 issue of Nature.

An artist’s conception of the relative sizes and shapes of Pluto’s known moons is shown in the following figure:

image Source: NASA

The largest moon, Charon, and Pluto form a binary system that orbits a point between the two, as shown in the following figure, in which Pluto’s orbit is shown in red and Charon’s orbit is shown in green.

image Source: NASA

As described in my 14 March 2015 post, this binary system behavior also was observed from the New Horizons spacecraft, which is approaching Pluto for a flyby on 14 July 2015.

The Pluto-Charon binary system creates an irregular, rotating, dumbbell-shaped gravitational field that acts on the other moons orbiting the binary pair, resulting in chaotic (unpredictable in the long-term) orbits of the outer moons. The behaviors of Hydra and Nix are further complicated by their non-spherical shapes and tumbling orbital flight. Nonetheless, it appears that the orbits of Hydra, Nix and Styx are synchronized with each other in a 3-body resonance.

You can read more details on the 28 May NASA briefing at the following link:

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/pluto-and-its-moons-are-weirder-than-we-thought?utm_source=howtogeek&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter

Three Very Large New Optical Telescopes are Under Development

All Posts, Astronomy, , , , , , , , ,

Peter Lobner

Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), Las Campanas Observatory, Chile

The GMT is a new, very large optical telescope facility planned for construction at an elevation of over 2,550 m (about 8,500 ft) in the mountains of the Chilean Atacama Desert. The GMT is comprised of seven 8.4 m (27 ft) diameter monolithic, circular mirror segments arranged in a hexagonal array. GMT will have a total optical surface measuring 24.5 m (80 ft) in diameter, with an optical surface area of 368 square meters (3,860.8 square feet). The GMT is expected to have 10 times the the resolving power of the Hubble Space Telescope.

image  Source: www.gmto.org

GMT will be the largest optical telescope in the world when it sees first light in 2021. It is expected to be fully operational in 2024. For more details, including a 360 degree tour, check out the GMT website at the following link:

http://www.gmto.org/overview/

On 3 June 2015, the international consortium known as Giant Magellan Telescope Organization (GMTO), approved proceeding to the construction phase. You can read this press release at the following link:

http://www.gmto.org/2015/06/giant-magellan-telescopes-international-partners-approve-start-of-construction-phase/

European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT), Cerro Armazones, Chile

The E-ELT program was approved in December 2012, and groundbreaking for the new observatory occurred in January 2014 in the Chilean Atacama Desert.  When it is completed, E-ELT will be the largest optical / infrared telescope in the world.  Its 39 meter adaptive mirror, composed of about 800 hexagonal segments, will be able to adjust the alignment of individual mirror segments a thousand times a second.

EELTSource: eelt.orgEELT2Source: eelt.org

Detailed information on EELT is available on the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and E-ELT websites at the following links:

https://www.eso.org/sci/facilities/eelt/

and

http://www.eelt.org.uk

Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), Mauna Kea, Hawaii, USA

The TMT is a new, very large optical telescope facility planned for construction on Mauna Kea, at an elevation above 3,960 m (about 13,000 ft). The TMT will be a wide-field telescope with a 492 segment, 30 meter (98.4 ft) diameter primary mirror, a fully-active secondary mirror and an articulated tertiary mirror. The telescope is designed for flexibility in the choice of adaptive optics (AO) systems and science instruments that can be used for specific observations. TMT will have a light-collecting area of 664.2 square meters (7,148.7 square feet), almost 10 times more than one of the 10 m (32.8 ft) diameter Keck telescopes (also on Mauna Kea), with diffraction-limited spatial resolution that exceeds Keck by a factor of 3. Relative to the Hubble Space Telescope, TMT will have more than a factor of 10 better spatial resolution at near-infrared and longer wavelengths. When completed, the TMT will take over the title of the world’s largest optical telescope from the GMT.

The general arrangement of the TMT, including the segmented primary mirror, is shown in the following diagram.

imageSource: UH, TMT.org

For more details on the TMT, visit the University of Hawaii’s website at the following link:

http://www.tmt.org

Particularly interesting is the Detailed Science Case: 2015 for the TMT, which you can find at the following link:

http://www.tmt.org/sites/default/files/TMT-DSC-2015-release-2015Apr29-s.pdf

The future of the TMT and other observatories on Mauna Kea is being discussed now by University of Hawaii, the Hawaii Governor’s office and native Hawaiian groups that have been protesting the presence of observatories on the mountain. On 1 June 2015, University of Hawaii issued a press release announcing it’s Implementation Plan for Improved Stewardship of Mauna Kea, with a commitment to provide additional details in July 2015. You can read this Plan at the following link:

http://www.tmt.org/news-center/uh-implementation-plan-improved-stewardship-maunakea

I hope that there is a place for the TMT on Mauna Kea.

16 October 2016 Updates:  TMT siting still not confirmed

New hearings on the future siting of TMT on Mauna Kea begin in Hawaii on 18 October 2016.  As a hedge against failing to gain approval in Hawaii, the TMT partners are considering alternate sites, including sites originally considered in the mid-2000s when TMT site selection started. An alternate site in the northern hemisphere is preferred because the two other giant optical / infrared telescopes, the GMT and E-ELT, already are under construction in the southern hemisphere.  Candidate sites in the northern hemisphere include:  San Pedro Martir in Baja California, Mexico and Roque de los Muchachos on the Spanish island of La Palma off the Atlantic coast of Morocco.