Overseeing $1B telescope ‘once-in-a-lifetime opportunity’

Anne Ryman | The Arizona Republic

Show Caption Hide Caption Magellan Telescope at UA The mirrors are being developed at the University of Arizona.

PHOENIX — Robert Shelton has been a physics professor, a university president and executive director of the college Fiesta Bowl.

But his next job will push his career to "out of this world" heights.

Shelton will oversee a massive new telescope in the mountains of northern Chile.

The $1 billion Giant Magellan Telescope is planned to be the world's largest telescope when it becomes operational around 2025.

Seven giant mirrors will collect light with a unique design that will give the telescope 10 times the resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope.

The 27-foot mirrors are being manufactured in a lab at the University of Arizona in Tucson, where Shelton was president from 2006 to 2011.

Cutting-edge science

Shelton, 68, said he couldn't pass up the chance to work on the project.

"It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," said Shelton, who lives in Tucson and plans to move with his wife, Adrian, to Pasadena, Calif., where the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization is headquartered.

As president, Shelton will lead a team of 80 or so employees, work with a board of directors and raise funds for the approximately $500 million still needed for the project.

He'll also keep in close contact with the international partners who make up the telescope's consortium, including universities and science institutes in Australia, the United States, Brazil and Korea. Harvard University, the Smithsonian Institution and Carnegie Institution for Science are among the U.S. partners.

Harvard President Drew Faust called the telescope a groundbreaking scientific tool for discovery.

"I look forward to Robert Shelton’s experienced leadership in making it a reality,” Faust said in a statement.

Shelton said the telescope site atop a remote mountain has been leveled. Buildings have been constructed to house workers and astronomers. Water, electricity and fiber optics have been installed.

The 8,000-foot elevation site in the Andes mountain range was chosen because of dark skies and dry climate, considered necessary elements for optimal viewing.

Shelton was drawn to the position because of the opportunity to be involved in cutting-edge science and discoveries.

An impressive engineering feat

The Giant Magellan may be the first of three "extremely large telescopes" to come online. Also in various stages of planning: the European Extremely Large Telescope, also in Chile, and the Thirty Meter Telescope in Hawaii.

Massive telescopes are being designed to enable astronomers to look back even farther in time. They'll be able to see fainter objects and conduct more detailed observations of brighter objects such as nearby stars.

Just how powerful is the Giant Magellan predicted to be?

If the telescope was in Phoenix and you pointed it at a dime in Tucson, you would be able to see the torch on the dime.

The mirrors are among the largest telescope mirrors ever made, and they're being manufactured in a cavernous lab on the University of Arizona campus.

The lab will produce eight mirrors, which include a backup mirror. Four mirrors have been cast.

To make the a 17-ton mirror, glass chunks are piled into a massive furnace and melted to temperatures of about 2,140 degrees. The furnace gradually drops to room temperature over about 12 weeks. The gradual cooling ensures the mirror doesn't break.

The mirrors resemble round ice-skating rinks. Grinding and polishing take years. The surface is polished so precisely that if the mirror were expanded to the size of the United States, the highest and lowest points would differ by no more than half an inch.

Shelton knows the mirror lab well from his years as university president. He still remembers what he calls his first "remarkable" visit to the lab, which is tucked underneath the bleachers of the football stadium.

"You can talk about an 8.4-meter diameter mirror. But to see the setup: the furnaces and the rotating table that spins the glass. It's just an incredible engineering feat to have done that," he said.