Mauna Kea telescopes coming back to life

Though not exactly fully functional yet, the telescopes atop Mauna Kea are starting to conduct science for the first time in nearly four weeks.

In fact, there was at least one significant discovery over the weekend: the confirmation that a near-Earth asteroid on a previously uncertain path will not collide with our planet in the next century.

David Tholen of the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy found the wayward asteroid known as 2006 QV89 and confirmed its track using the Canada- France-Hawaii Telescope.

That telescope and the rest of the Mauna Kea observatories Friday reached an understanding with the Thirty Meter Telescope protesters and law enforcement agencies over access to Mauna Kea Access Road, allowing for safe passage to the summit for astronomy crews.

The agreement led observatory officials to announce that they would ramp up their operations on the summit, ending the longest period of downtime in the 50-year history of Mauna Kea astronomy.

“Nearly every observatory had one crew go up (Monday),” said Jessica Dempsey, deputy director of the East Asian Observatory, which operates the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. “By midweek most of the telescopes will be on sky, at least on a limited basis.”

Dempsey said one “semifunctional” instrument was tested at the JCMT telescope Sunday night, while another will be out of action for three weeks.

“Everybody’s thrilled we’re back observing the sky,” said Nadine Manset, resident astronomer at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope.

More than 500 people on Hawaii island have careers connected to the Mauna Kea observatories.

“I’m happy to see my staff happy,” Dempsey said. “It’s been pretty frustrating.”

Some 25 employees were brought off the mountain for safety reasons July 16, shortly after protesters began blocking the access road in a mission to prevent work crews from reaching the construction site of the $1.4 billion Thirty Meter Telescope near the mountain’s summit.

With work crews off the mountain, the telescope’s directors announced they were discontinuing operations to prevent their delicate instruments from suffering any major problems.

The agreement announced Friday came after safety concerns at the protest site were addressed and after state and county officials pledged support for the access arrangement, officials said.

As part of the agreement, the state laid down cinder to help smooth out the rugged lava road over which works crews were required to reach the access road. Officials also put out cones and reflectors to address safety concerns at night. The protesters also agreed to allow larger vehicles to pass through the blockade by letting them go around tents and onto the road shoulder.

Dempsey said her crews are now carefully packing up the observatory’s new $400,000 three-camera black-hole imager in preparation for the journey through the blockade and up the mountain.

The instrument, named Namakanui by University of Hawaii-Hilo Hawaiian- language professor Larry Kimura, arrived in Hilo nearly four weeks ago, intended for immediate delivery and installation at the summit. But the protest made that a risky endeavor, Dempsey said, so a decision was made to conduct its initial testing in a lab at sea level.

The James Clerk Maxwell Telescope and the Submillimeter Array were part of the recent historic first imaging of a black hole by a global network of observatories known as the Event Horizon Telescope, and the more advanced Namakanui is scheduled to be part of next year’s imaging of another black hole.

As for asteroid 2006 QV89, it was first seen 13 years ago by a telescope in Arizona. Its exact path couldn’t be determined at the time, but apparently there was a chance it could collide with Earth as early as this year.

Tholen said this summer provided the first window of opportunity to spot the asteroid. But that effort was blocked when the telescopes suspended operations due to the protest.

“Our highest priority target for Saturday night was the best 2006 QV89 candidate, and despite some thin cirrus clouds and a lot of moonlight, we needed only four minutes of data to obtain proof that we had found the right object,” Tholen said in a news release.

A different asteroid, 2019 NX5, escaped detection while the Mauna Kea telescopes were shut down, Tholen said.

“We are relieved that we were able to catch 2006 QV89 before our window closed. We are even more relieved that it won’t impact the Earth,” he said.