The Giant Magellan Telescope has moved a step closer with a $500 funding committed from across the world today. There are total 11 international partners in the Giant Magellan Telescope and two of them are Australian--the Australian National University and Astronomy Australia Limited.

For the contribution in the project, the two Australians will own a 10% share in the telescope when it goes online in Chile, between 2021 and 2024.

Professor Matthew Colless, director of the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, said the telescope’s capability will be significantly improved by the use of tools constructed in Australia.

“We're building two of the first set of instruments that are going to be on the telescope, and we're also building part of the adaptive optics which is what allows the telescope to look through the atmosphere, and see nearly as sharply as the Hubble Space Telescope does from in orbit”, said Colless.

Colless is also the vice chair of the Giant Magellan Telescope Organisation Board. He said the blur will be taken out of the atmosphere with the help of the adaptive optics system.

The adaptive optics system is being designed at the ANU to deal with the atmospheric distortions to make vision possible even in the night sky.

Astronomy Australia Limited Chair Professor Brian Schmidt said the telescope will take astronomy to a new level, allowing scientists to look back in time to shortly before the Big bang.

He said it’s not a hyperbole to say that the Giant Magellan Telescope will help remove the lid from secrets of the universe and make several vital discoveries.