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Hawaiians want the largest spacial telescope on the mountain Mauna Kea taken down, as protesters fight the construction of giant telescope on Mauna Kea.
The building of a new spacial telescope on the mountain Mauna Kea from Hawaii has created a huge scandal. Many people are against the construction and have submitted a petition to the governor of Hawaii asking him not to allow the giant telescope to be built on the mountain, which is considered to be sacred.
Mauna Kea is 4,200 metres above the sea level and because of that, astronomers consider it to be the perfect location for constructing a telescope for studying the outer space. This wouldn’t be the first telescope to be built on the mountain, as there are many other astronomical telescopes. Even so, Hawaiians don’t agree with this new telescope, called Thirty Meter Telescope, to be set on the peak of Mauna Kea.
Governor Ige has also been submitted a petition signed by 53,000 people who stated that they were against the building of the huge telescope on mountain Mauna Kea.
Local people and hundreds of students from the University of Hawaii have been protesting against the telescope to be constructed. So far, the protest has delayed works on the telescope and there have been arrested several people who were protesting.
The protest has began about a month ago, at the end of March and since then, police have arrested over 30 participants.
For the moment, the protest seems to have at least delayed the project, as on the 7th of April, the governor of Hawaii, David Ige has made an announcement saying that the project has been stopped for now, but he didn’t say for how long and when will it recommence.
Protesters are decided not to stop until they receive what they are asking and they have asked the governor to cancel the arrests of the ones who have been detained by the police, saying that it is abnormal to turn them into criminals for wanting to protect their mountain.
On the other hand, the constructors of the giant telescope have said that they have acquired all the legal papers to give them permmision to build the telescope on Mauna Kea and they have full authority approval to start the construction.
The telescope is being built trough a collaboration of several countries, like the United States, India, Canada, China and Japan and its price is around $1.4 billion. Researchers have put their hopes into the fact that the new telescope will help them understand more space.
The under construction project, will be the largest telescope in the world and researchers are expecting to start using it by 2023.
But until then, the project is on stand by waiting for approval.
