India and China to build largest telescope

China and India are catapulting to the forefront of astronomy research with their decision to join as partners in a Hawaii telescope that will be the world's largest when it is built later this decade.

China and India will pay a share of the construction cost - expected to top one billion US dollars - for the Thirty Metre Telescope at the summit of Mauna Kea volcano. They will also have a share of the observation time.

It is the first advanced telescope in which either nation has been a partner.

"This will represent a quantum leap for the Chinese community," Shude Mao, professor of astrophysics at National Astronomical Observatories of China, said in a telephone interview from Waikoloa on the Big Island, where he was attending a meeting of the telescope's scientific advisory committee.

A report in Press Association. Here