The founder of IT firm Intel has pledged $200 million for what is being claimed as the world’s largest telescope. When it starts scientific work sometime in 2016 the Thirty Meter Telescope will consist of 492 individual 1.45-metre segments creating a total diameter of, you guessed it, 30 metres.

The gift comes under the auspices of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, set up by Intel co-founder Gordon. Almost matching donations of $100 million from the University of California and the Caltech will bring the total from this gift to $300 million (press release).

Currently in a $79 million design-development phase, the telescope had prior to this been granted $50 million in support from other sources. Maybe they’ll now decide to change the name to something like Moore’s Massive Monitoring Mechanism?

However its ‘largest telescope’ badge won’t last for long if the Europeans get their way. Although plans for a 100 metre, and much more impressively named, Overwhelmingly Large Telescope have been scaled back, a 42 metre ’scope is still on the cards….

More on Moore– News coverage in The Daily Californian, The LA Times.

– List of huge telescopes across the world.

– Gordon Moore game his name to Moore’s law, featured recently on The Great Beyond.

– Nature’s philanthropy special.

Image: credit TMT Observatory Corporation