Who would ever think that building something to function deep in
Antarctica in the middle of winter would be the cheap option?
New Scientist reports that astronomers at the University of New
South Wales, Australia, have proposed building a new telescope
(an "Extremely Large Telescope," no less, with at least a 30
meter mirror) at Dome C, an Antarctic plateau at 75° south and
over three kilometers above sea level. Preliminary tests of the
location, using an 85 milllimeter scope, showed that the plateau
had extremely low atmospheric "jitter" because the location has
very low wind speeds and little turbulence in the air. The
researchers claim a two-meter telescope in that location -- a
moderate size for a professional device -- would be able to
image galactic phenomena with a clarity comparable to Hubble. A
larger scope would be far better. Dome C could be home to the
first serious Earth-based terrestrial planet-finder scope.
According to PhysOrg, the UNSW proposal has another interesting
feature: much of it wou