The Space Reporter: The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), a $1.4 billion project designed to enable scientists to study the atmospheres of exoplanets and look back at the early universe, may be moved from Mauna Kea, Hawaii, to La Palma in Spain’s Canary Islands. Native Hawaiians have actively opposed the telescope’s construction because Mauna Kea is a sacred site to indigenous people. Opposition to the project has been expressed both on the site, where Natives stopped its construction in April 2015 by blocking access and offsite in the legal system, where their challenge resulted in the withdrawal of a construction permit by the State Supreme Court. The permit was withdrawn because it was granted before the opposition had had a chance to make its case against the project. A new permit application process, complete with hearings before the state’s Board of Land and Natural Resources, is scheduled to begin this month. Mauna Kea is viewed as the ideal site for what will be one of the world’s largest ground-based telescopes because its 13,287-foot (4,050-meter) elevation has ideal conditions for observational astronomy–cloudless skies, and a low content of atmospheric water vapor. Thirteen other large telescopes are housed on Mauna Kea though several are in the ...