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VANCOUVER — Canadian companies will play a significant role in constructing what’s billed as the most powerful optical telescope on Earth.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said late Monday that Canada will provide up to $243.5 million over 10 years for the Thirty Meter Telescope project, which is scheduled to begin peering into the distant reaches of the galaxy and beyond by about 2023.

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When completed, the Thirty Metre Telescope will be in an observatory inside a Canadian-built enclosure 22 storeys tall with a primary mirror 30 metres across.

The US$1.5 billion telescope will be located at the summit of Hawaii’s Mauna Kea volcano and is expected to be operational by 2023-2024.

Harper said most of Canada’s contribution will be spent in this country.

It includes the precision-steel enclosure by Dynamic Structures Ltd., based in Port Coquitlam, B.C., and cutting-edge adaptive optics technologies, to be developed by the National Research Council along with Canadian companies.