"Crews have begun to remove 3 million cubic feet of rock from a mountaintop in the Chilean Andes to make room for what will be the world’s largest telescope.
This story begins on March 23rd, when astronomers and dignitaries trekked into the towering Andes northeast of La Serena, Chile, to a vantage overlooking the summit of Cerro Las Campanas. Topping out at 8,400 feet (2,550 m), this remote peak offers very dark skies, little or no risk of future light pollution, excellent atmospheric stability, and a high fraction of clear nights...
The GMT's design calls for seven enormous primary mirrors, each 27½ feet (8.4 m) across, arrayed in a tight cluster that will span more than 83 feet (25 m) edge to edge. When finished, the telescope's 1,000 tons of glass and steel, combined with adaptive-optics technology,
will resolve target details down to 0.01 arcsecond, besting the Hubble Space Telescope's resolution tenfold..."
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/commu...145704195.html
My wife and I visited Las Campanas last year.