Giant Magellan telescope begins primary mirror support system testing

The Giant Magellan Telescope today announced the successful installation of one of its completed 8.4-meter-diameter primary mirrors into a support system prototype at the University of Arizona's Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab. This highly sophisticated system—comparable in size to half a basketball court and containing three times the number of parts of a typical car—is vital to the telescope's optical performance and precision control.