Often lost in the discussion about whether the Thirty Meter Telescope should be constructed on Mauna Kea is the magnitude of the benefits to humankind that telescopes have given us.

If we imagine what it was like for the average person to learn the world was round, after our ancestors believed for hundreds of thousands of years that it was flat, we can get a sense of what telescopes have revealed about the nature of our home.

Now, thanks to telescopes, anyone who can read is able to know that our sun is an average sun in an average galaxy in a universe that may contain two trillion galaxies, or that every iota of our bodies is almost 14 billion years old.

But we still don’t know what comprises over 95% of the universe, what precipitated it, or if there are other universes.

Learning more about our home is in keeping with the tradition of exploration and discovery that led the first explorers to Hawaii, as we continue to be guided by the stars.

Robert Griffon

Makiki

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