Plans to build the world's largest optical telescope were jump-started with a 5 December announcement that a foundation set up by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore and his wife Betty had given the California Institute of Technology and the University of California $200 million.

The two universities will also put in $100 million for the billion-dollar project, called the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT).

The Thirty Meter Telescope will have 492 mirrors. Credit: THIRTY METER TELESCOPE

The gift puts the TMT ahead of two other planned mega-telescopes ? the Giant Magellan Telescope, a 24.5-metre telescope led by a consortium including the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and the Extremely Large Telescope, a 42-metre observatory planned by the European Southern Observatory. The TMT's 492 hexagonal mirrors will stretch for 30 metres, and the device is expected to achieve a better resolution than that of the Hubble Space Telescope. A final design is expected in 2009.