Los Angeles Times: A battle for the heavens on Mauna Kea

by Sandy Tolan for Los Angeles Times

Demonstrators opposed to the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea block access road. [Bruce Asato / Honolulu Star-Advertiser ]

For astronomers, the clear, dry air of Mauna Kea, the tallest peak in Hawaii, provides the best place in the Northern Hemisphere, and perhaps on Earth, for observing the heavens. It is here, at nearly 14,000 feet, that a consortium led by Caltech and the University of California want to place a massive telescope, 18 stories tall, that would serve as a celestial time machine.

The Thirty Meter Telescope, as it is known, would give astronomers the ability to “peer through space-time to the beginning of the universe 13 billion years ago, all the way back to nearly the hot big bang,” according to UC Santa Cruz astrophysicist and Thirty Meter Telescope board member Michael Bolte.

Native Hawaiians agree that Mauna Kea connects humanity to the universe — as an umbilical cord between Earth and space. The peak at Mauna Kea is the “highest point where land touches the sky — where the two deities, Sky Father and Earth Mother, meet,” said Noe Noe Wong-Wilson, 68, a retired cultural studies professor and elder in the fight against the telescope. To Native Hawaiians, putting a giant telescope on their sacred mountain is a desecration.

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