Communiqué from the IAC: Sentence about the concession of the land for the construction of the TMT to the IAC

Advertised on
Authors

The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has received and will appeal the sentence, which is not firm, related to the cancelling of the concession for the land which should house the Thirty Metre Telescope (TMT) in La Palma. In 2019 the Cabildo of La Palma, following approval by a full session of the Town Council of Puntagorda, and a detailed environmental study, conceded to the IAC the land on which the TMT could be built. This concession was made conditional on the decision within a few years, which have not yet expired, that the International TMT Observatory would decide to build it on this land. The judge has considered that, as this decision has not been taken by the TMT, the concession should be cancelled.

The IAC consideres that, according to the International Treaty "Agreement for Cooperation in Astrophysics" in 1979, ratified by the Spanish Parliament, is it necessary to have available the concession of the land to convince the international organism, the TMT, to adopt a decision favourable to the installation on La Palma, of what would be the biggest single investment in science in the history of our country. The IAC, among its statutary duties and powers, must ensure, on behalf of the State, and the Autonomous Community of the Canaries, the scientific returns of the astronomical installations of this community via agreements for collaboration with the institutions responsible for the telescopes which they may install in its observatories.

Related projects
Thirty Meter Telescope - TMT
Thirty Meter Telescope - TMT

Una vez construido, el Telescopio de Treinta Metros (Thirty Meter Telescope, TMT) será el telescopio terrestre más avanzado y potente de la historia, así como el telescopio óptico infrarrojo más grande del hemisferio norte que existirá en ese momento. Se incluye entre los denominados de tipo Telescopio Extremadamente Grande por el diámetro de su

Related news
Press conference after the meeting of the Governing Council.

This was stated by the acting Minister for Science, Innovation, and the Universities, Pedro Duque who chaired the annual meeting of the Governing Council of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), held today at its La Laguna headquarters. Among the other matters dealt with was the state of the negotiations about large telescopes, and the draft budget for 2020 was approved which, if implemented, will be larger for the first time than the budget of the Institute prior to the economic crisis in 2018.

Advertised on
Artistic image of the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, in La Palma, with the TMT and GTC identified

This morning, in the Cultural Space of the CajaCanarias Foundation in Santa Cruz de La Palma there was a public presentation of the Report on the Socio-economic impact of the Thirty Metre Telescope on the Island, by the Professor of the Department of Economy, Accountancy, and Finance of the University of La Laguna, its author. The report shows that the installation of the TMT on La Palma would not only be a milestone in the development of astrophysics, but it would have a significant positive economic impact on the Island. As well as Juan José Díaz, the others who spoke before the

Advertised on
Photo of Roger Davies

He was one of the “Seven Samurai” who in 1986 published that the Milky Way, together with its neighbour galaxies, in clusters and superclusters, forms a huge concentration of matter which they named the “Great Attractor”. Today, Professor Roger Davies is the President of the European Astronomical Society (EAS), whose Board of Directors recently met at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC). Davies, who is Professor at the University of Oxford, worked for many years with the William Herschel and Isaac Newton telescopes, at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory. Because of this, he is

Advertised on
Talk
Informative talk about the TMT project at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory
Director
Director

Aula

2 Oct 2019 - 13:00 Europe/London
Past