Observatories

Lying at the 4,200 meter high summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii houses the world’s largest observatory for optical, infrared, and sub-millimeter astronomy. Mauna Kea Observatory, astronomical research facility, located on Hawaii’s dormant volcano Mauna Kea, at an altitude of 4,205 m (13,796 ft). Mauna Kea offers nighttime viewing with minimal interference from human light sources. The observatory, founded in 1967, is affiliated with the University of Hawaii but has a number of internationally sponsored instruments. The …

…the sky. In addition, the sky is always cloud-free, which allows for clear night almost every night. The distance the observatory is from the city lights allow for an extremely dark sky, which allow for viewing of the furthest galaxies that we can see at the edge of our Universe. Without observatories like the one at Mauna Kea, we would not be able to discover what lye’s beyond our atmosphere and our solar system.