The Thirty Meter Telescope and the World of Science

Title: The Thirty Meter Telescope and the World of Science

Abstract: As with most advances in astronomy since Galileo's time, the 1998 path to the discovery of cosmic acceleration was paved with technological innovation. The present state-of-the-art for supernova-based constraints on the dark energy that drives the acceleration has been advanced by large samples with the Dark Energy Survey and, as I will describe, observations in the rest frame infrared with HST. Is the dark energy the cosmological constant or something different?  

As Astro2020 noted, in the decades to come a wide swath of advances in exoplanets, black holes, dark energy, and galaxy evolution will come from the Thirty Meter Telescope, in which the University of California is an essential partner. I will provide an overview of the TMT and its present status: technical, programmatic, and progress on building a community-based model for stewardship of the proposed site on Maunakea. We have been a lightning rod for protest; we aspire to be a catalyst for change.