The Large Millimeter Telescope of Mexico: its history and curiosities

From the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) to the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt), the scientific scene in Mexico has received recognition throughout history, including a Nobel Prize. However, one of his best-known inventions is of recent creation: we are talking about the Large Millimeter Telescope, inaugurated in 2006. We invite you to learn more about this invention here.

What was its origin?

Its story begins in 1994, when the INAOE (known as the National Institute of Astrophysics) signed an agreement with UMass-Amherst (University of Massachusetts at Amherst), starting a Mexican-American project costing more than 200 million dollars. The first observations were made in 2011, although it took until 2013 for the period of scientific observations to begin. Thus, it forms part of the so-called “golden age of astronomy”, marked by technological advances that allow the study of phenomena that are ever further away in space. In this way, it joins the list of historical telescopes already in operation (the Gran Telescopio Canarias, the Hobby-Eberly Telescope or the Southern African Large Telescope) and some to be built, such as the infrared telescope inside the Eastern Anatolian Observatory, in Turkey (accessible to visit by Mexicans through the visa to this country that can be obtained through visaturquia.com.mx).

The telescope, whose official name is the Alfonso Serrano Large Millimeter Telescope, in honor of the researcher who promoted its construction, is built in Mexico, at 4,500 meters above sea level, on the top of the Sierra Negra volcano, now extinct. This is the fifth highest mountain in the country, located in Puebla. In order to gain access, a 4×4 vehicle must be used for several hours and special care must be taken to avoid nausea and dizziness from the altitude.

Some of its functions

He is dedicated to a historical function that seeks to investigate the origins of the universe and the formation of structures such as stars (in formation or evolved), comets, planets, molecular clouds, black holes, galaxy clusters and active galactic nuclei. With a satellite dish almost 50 meters in diameter, it is the largest telescope of its kind in the world, allowing you to see not only very distant objects, but also very cold elements (close to absolute zero).

The first photo of a black hole

As we have mentioned, one of the main objects of study of the GTM is the black hole. This was one of the factors that connected it with the Event Horizon Telescope (in Spanish, Telescopio del Horizonte de Sucesos), a set of international telescopes that seeks to capture the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*, located within the Milky Way. In this group, he participates with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (Chile), the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (Hawaii), the South Pole Telescope (South Pole) and the Millimeter Radio Astronomical Institute (Spain), among others. Through a technique called very long base interferometry, it is possible to combine the signals from different radio telescopes and it becomes possible to achieve a global image. The difficulty in capturing black holes is that their force is so powerful that not even light can escape. It is for this reason that, until now, the shape could only be conjectural, subject to the imagination.

On April 10, 2019, the first image (based on an indirect representation, formed from radiation and light emitted by matter moving around the hole) of this project was released, showing a black hole 6.5 billion times larger than the sun, located 55 million light-years from Earth, in the Messier 87 galaxy, a Galaxy neighbor. The project was carried out by more than 200 scientists. This had a continuation on May 22, 2022, when a second image was published, this time of the Sagittarius A* black hole.

Those with a passion for science can make inquiries to visit this telescope. You can also visit the Veracruz aquarium or, if you are interested in dinosaurs, you can go to the Geology Museum, the Dinopark or the Natural History Museum. History buffs can also visit the cave paintings of Loreto and the Great Museum of the Mayan World. Thus, Mexico is situated with a great heritage of the past and projection towards the future.