Astronomers have begun to blast 3 million cubic feet of rock from a mountaintop in the Chilean Andes to make room for what will be the world's largest telescope when completed near the end of the decade.

On January 14, 2012, the second 8.4-meter (27.6 ft) diameter mirror for the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) will be cast inside a rotating furnace at the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory Mirror Lab (SOML) underneath the campus football stadium.

Astronomers have found the first clear evidence of a binary quasar within a pair of actively merging galaxies.

Nine astronomical research organizations from the United States, Australia and Korea have signed an official agreement to construct and operate the Giant Magellan Telescope, or GMT, at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, the Giant Magellan Telescope Corp announced today.

WASHINGTON - A telescope arms race is taking shape. Astronomers are drawing up plans for the biggest, most powerful instruments ever constructed, capable of peering far deeper into the universe - and further back in time - than ever before.