{"id":15193,"date":"2013-03-19T09:54:25","date_gmt":"2013-03-19T19:54:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=15193"},"modified":"2020-11-17T13:43:10","modified_gmt":"2020-11-17T23:43:10","slug":"3-million-puts-pan-starrs-back-on-track","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2013\/03\/19\/3-million-puts-pan-starrs-back-on-track\/","title":{"rendered":"$3 million puts Pan-STARRS back on track"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
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Pan-STARRS telescope<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The cancellation of earmarks by the U.S. Congress in 2011 left Pan-STARRS<\/a>, one of Hawaiʻi<\/span>’s flagship programs, $10 million short of the funds needed to complete the historic 2-telescope system.<\/p>\n

Thanks to an anonymous $3 million gift, Pan-STARRS will survive the cuts and continue astronomy research of global import.<\/p>\n

The Pan-STARRS project is an innovative design for synchronized wide-field telescopes developed at the University of Hawaiʻi<\/span> at Mānoa Institute for Astronomy<\/a>. Since it became operational in 2010, the first telescope in the system, PS1<\/abbr>, has discovered more than 345 near-Earth asteroids, including 29 that are potentially hazardous to Earth, as well as 19 previously unobserved comets \u2013 like the one visible in our skies right now.<\/p>\n

The Institute for Astronomy is building a second telescope, PS2<\/abbr>, the second component to this landmark initiative. “Once PS2<\/abbr> is completed this year, the Pan-STARRS system will be by far the most powerful wide-field imaging system in existence,” said Nick Kaiser<\/strong>, principal investigator of Pan-STARRS at the Institute for Astronomy.<\/p>\n

The $3 million gift will:<\/p>\n