SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 5 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The National Academies of Sciences of the United States presented on Thursday afternoon its report ‘Pathways to Discovery in Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 2020s’, a ten-year study that identifies research priorities and makes recommendations on future investments in science for the next 10 years and in which it is included that the Extremely Large Telescope Program (ELT) is a “priority”.
Thus, it establishes the need to invest in at least one of the projects of this type of telescopes that have already been proposed, among which is the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT).
According to the statement, the TMT could be located in both Hawaii and La Palma, the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) collects in a note.
Rafael Rebolo, director of the organization, qualifies this decision as a success “since it means that the scientific evaluation carried out by this top-level US committee considers the scientific objectives of the TMT viable if it were to settle on the palm island.”
During the next year 2022, the National Science Foundation (NSF) will conduct a comprehensive external review to assess the financial and programmatic viability of each of the US ELT projects.
