Original URL: https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2025/06/giant-magellan-telescope-enters-final-design-phase/
By Amanda Morris (Northwestern Now, June 30, 2025)
The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), an enormous ground-based telescope currently under construction in Chile’s Atacama Desert, is one vital step closer toward completion.
Earlier this month, the National Science Foundation (NSF) confirmed the massive observatory will advance to its Major Facilities Design Phase, one of the final steps before becoming eligible for federal construction funding. Announced in December, Northwestern University is a founding partner of the GMT. Now, this critical milestone affirms the GMT’s scientific merit, construction progress and alignment with U.S. priorities in science and technology.
“This milestone reflects not just national recognition, but a shared global commitment to advancing discovery,” said Northwestern’s Vicky Kalogera, a key scientific leader of Northwestern’s GMT initiative. “With this visionary facility, Northwestern researchers will be at the forefront of unlocking the universe’s deepest mysteries.”
Kalogera is the Daniel I. Linzer Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. She also is director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA) and the NSF-Simons Foundation AI Institute for the Sky (SkAI, pronounced “sky”). To read more, see https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2025/06/giant-magellan-telescope-enters-final-design-phase/
The SkAI Institute is one of the National Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and Simons Foundation.
Information on National AI Institutes is available at aiinstitutes.org.
