The Giant Magellan Telescope will be built on a mountaintop in Chile’s Atacama Desert, a region that is home to many telescopes thanks to its clear skies, dry air and minimal ambient light pollution.
Image courtesy GMTO Corp.

Situated on a remote mountaintop in the Atacama Desert in Chile, the Giant Magellan Telescope will one day allow astronomers to peer further into the universe with a greater degree of clarity than ever before. But siting a highly sensitive instrument with seven massive, 8.4-meter-dia mirrors on a windy peak in one of the world’s most seismically active regions takes careful engineering, especially since the 12-story upper section of the 22-story telescope enclosure will have to rotate 360° with an extreme degree of precision, multiple times a night.