Hawaii roundup: World’s biggest telescope planned for Mauna Kea; two top surf towns; USS Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor arrival

> The Big Island’s Mauna Kea was picked this week as the future site of what will be the world’s largest telescope. The Thirty Meter Telescope will enable “astronomers to detect and study light from the earliest stars and galaxies, analyze the formation of planets around nearby stars, and test many of the fundamental laws of physics,” according to a news release.

The telescope will be the 14th atop the 13,796-foot, astronomically popular Mauna Kea summit, which already holds the biggest telescopes internationally and beat out a site at Cerro Armazones in Chile for the next world-title-holder.

The new addition is not without its objectors. “Mauna Kea is considered sacred to Native Hawaiians, while environmentalists have raised concerns about how the project will affect rare native plant and insect species atop the volcano,” reported the Honolulu Advertiser.

> Santa Cruz, Calif., may be riding the top spot on Surfer magazine’s recent “Ten Best Surf Towns in America” piece, but Hawaiian waters have by no means been left in the dust. Haleiwa (”the gateway to the seven miles of wave-filled wonder that are the North Shore”) and Paia (”Maui’s Answer to Byron Bay”) rank No. 2 and 4, respectively, on the list.

> The Aloha State’s namesake USS Hawaii submarine arrives this morning at Pearl Harbor, amid spectators and ceremonial fanfare. The $2.5 billion vessel will, according to the Honolulu Advertiser, be “the first of the new Virginia-class submarines to be homeported” there.

- Susan Derby, Special to the Los Angeles Times

[Top image: The Thirty Meter Telescope is shown here in its enclosure. According to the Thirty Meter Telescope website, the vents, which are open in this image, are designed to optimize the air flow over the primary mirror so as to reduce mirror seeing effects." Courtesy TMT Observatory Corporation]

[Bottom photo: The sun sets on Haleiwa Beach, on the North Shore of Oahu. Credit: Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times]

Permalink | E-mail | Print | Add to My Trips

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 8:40 am by Susan Derby and is filed under Hawaii, Hawaii's Big Island, Islands & Beaches, Maui, News, Tips & Advice, Oahu. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.