In offering a home on Kitt Peak, Arizona, to the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS), the National Optical Astronomy Observatory has come to the rescue of the gamma-ray detector, whose earlier proposed site was blocked last year by the US Forest Service after appeals by Native Americans and environmentalists (see Physics Today, Physics Today 0031-9228 56 6 2003 31 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1595049 June 2003, page 31 ).
To fit a budget that shrank from $22.5 million to $17.5 million when the Smithsonian Institution pared back its contribution, VERITAS has morphed from seven 10-meter to four 12-meter telescopes. Having fewer telescopes reduces the experiment’s flexibility, but the increased diameter, combined with the higher elevation of the new site, nudges the energy detection threshold down by about 10% to 100 GeV. The bulk of the construction tab will be shared by the US Department of Energy and NSF. The Smithsonian...
