India lose out on host in world’s largest telescope

India lose out on host in world’s largest telescope . India has failed on being the destination for the world’s largest telescope. There was a lot of expectation that the giant Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) would get housed at a remote high- altitude site in the cold desert of Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir. This week members of the multi-country group that is t decided to build the telescope in the Canary Islands in the

Atlantic Ocean. A telescope that would cost upwards of USD 2 billion by the time it is becomes operational in 2025. The TMT project found favour with the National Democratic Alliance and was one of the first mega science projects cleared by Modi’s cabinet.

iv. The preferred site to house the giant TMT was on a 4050-m- high mountain in Hawaii called Mauna Kea but the local courts in Hawaii heard protest petitions from the local people who felt the making of the telescope violated a ‘sacred site’.