“Dreaming stars: this is how Astrophysics was born and consolidated in Spain” is the title of the book by Professor Francisco Sánchez, which has just been published in July of this year. As the legendary Queen guitarist Brian May says in the prologue, the book is a passionate account of the extraordinary growth of Spanish astronomy, placing it at the forefront of global astrophysical research. And within the vanguard, the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC) is the spearhead, thanks, among many things, to the exceptional conditions of a natural resource as powerful as our sky from the high peaks of Teide and Roque de los Muchachos.
The economic and social impact of Astrophysics in the Canary Islands is well documented, in a rigorous work by Professor Juan José Díaz and Eduardo Martínez Budria, where they demonstrate that 1,554 full-time jobs depend on the astrophysics sector in the Islands, that for every euro spent by the sector 3.56 Euros are generated in the Canary Islands GDP, and that on the island of La Palma, it represents 3.3% of the island's GDP. For these reasons and many more, which they present in this study of almost one hundred pages, they conclude by saying: “in an international context that is increasingly competitive and in continuous transformation, the Astrophysics sector in the Canary Islands is a valid option to strengthen given the notable capacity to generate added value, employment and wealth in an environmentally friendly manner, as demonstrated in this study.”
We all remember in the Canary Islands, how a few years ago, the largest European infrastructure in the field of solar physics from the ground, the EST, escaped us to be installed in distant Chilean lands, in Cerro Armazones, although the financing was European.
Now, things of fate, a new opportunity opens up for us. The Americans want to build a huge 30-meter telescope (TMT) and install it in Hawaii, but in the face of opposition from environmental and native religious groups, since Mauna Kea is a sacred site, they have decided after multiple alternatives that the best is the Roque de los Muchachos in La Palma. As Francisco Sánchez relates in his book (page 369), the head of operations of the TMT Cristophe Dumas insisted “the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory has full capacity to satisfy the scientific objectives of the TMT and, very importantly, this observatory already has the necessary infrastructure and that reduces costs.”
When you read “Teneriffe: An Astronomer's experiment” that would go around the world for its scientific importance, and which tells of the arrival on the island of two telescopes from Greenwich, transported by the astronomer, Charles Piazzi Smyth in 1856, to the top of Mount Teide with the help of a few canaries and some mules; or recently, in the sixties, the hardships with which Francisco Sánchez worked; It is precisely from that perspective, where we best assess where we are and where we can go if the TMT is consolidated as a reality.
Let's not waste time. It is time to work together, do it intelligently, unblock the administrative tangle and turn the permit traffic lights green.
