LMT

Urgent action is needed to “guarantee the operation of a flagship project of Mexican science,” LMT Director David Hughes and five other researchers wrote in a 19 March letter to Mexico’s finance secretary, Rogelio Ramírez de la O.

Perched on top of a 4600-meter-high dormant volcano in southern Mexico, the LMT is the world’s largest single-dish steerable telescope designed to observe radio signals at millimeter wavelengths, which carry information about the universe’s cold clouds of gas and dust.

The LMT’s size and location have made it a key component of the EHT, says Ivan Martí-Vidal, an astronomer at the University of Valencia who works with the EHT.

In 2018, the Mexican government agreed to provide the LMT with $9 million over 3 years to cover Mexico’s share of the telescope’s operating costs.

In 2020, however, the government eliminated and restructured some of those trust funds, creating uncertainty about LMT’s future funding.