Projects will offer "public access" in bid for support from astronomy community.

Two U.S.-led giant telescope projects, rivals for nearly 2 decades, announced this week that they have agreed to join forces. The Giant Magellan Telescope, a 25-meter telescope under construction in Chile, and the Thirty Meter Telescope, which backers hope to build atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii, are still short of partners and money. They will now work together to win funding from the National Science Foundation, which could help the projects catch up to a third giant telescope, the 39-meter European Extremely Large Telescope, due to begin operations in 2024. It is a historic peace accord to end a conflict that has divided funders and delayed both projects. The partnership commits the two projects to developing a joint plan that would allow astronomers from any institution to use the telescopes; under previous plans observing time was available only to researchers from nations or institutions that had provided funding. The projects are discussing awarding at least 25% of each telescope9s time to nonpartners through a competitive process to be administered by the National Center for Optical-Infrared Astronomy—an umbrella organization that will replace the National Optical Astronomy Observatory sometime in fiscal year 2019. Telescope backers hope the public access plan will help persuade the federal government to pay for at least 25% of the total cost of the two facilities, a share that could reach $1 billion.

Method offers a low-cost way to fill seismic detection gaps.

There are lessons for climate scientists buried in the past. Carbon dioxide (CO2) levels surged many times millions of years ago, triggering ancient bouts of climate change. But the evidence is hazy: Models of ancient atmospheres and tools for teasing out past CO2 levels from fossils and rocks all have limitations. Now, scientists have developed a new method for wringing CO2 estimates from fossilized leaves—one that can go deeper into the past, and with more certainty. And it is delivering some unsettling news: It suggests that for the same amount of injected CO2, temperatures might rise further than current models predict.

Two companies hope to sell atmospheric data to NOAA

Microwave-sensing CubeSats could bolster fragile polar weather satellite system