E-ELT

The European Extremely Large Telescope is a planned ground-based observatory in Chile (completion in 2018) Specs: The 42m diameter main mirror will be made up from almost 1000 hexagonal segments. It will have 15x the light gathering capacity of the largest contemporary optical telescope. Science: adaptive optics, exoplanetary imaging, star formation, accretion disks, formation of black holes, supergalactic structure.

Giant Magellan Telescope

GMT is a planned ground observatory in Chile (2018) Specs: will consist of 7 8.4 meter diameter primary segments with the resolving power of a 24.5 m mirror (.21-.34''). Visible spectrum 350-35000nm. Science: adaptive optics, exoplanetary imaging, star formation, accretion disks, formation of black holes, supergalactic structure.

Kepler
Kepler is a new space mission to search for extra-solar planets by looking for brightness oscillations (2009) Specs: 1m aperture, visible and near infrared spectrum, earth-trailing orbit, 95 megapixels resolution Science: detect and study extrasolar planets and systems

Observatories: The Next Generation

Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope

The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope was launched in 2008 to identify and study sources of gamma-ray Specs: detectors for 150 keV to 300 GeV, low Earth orbit Science: observe gamma-ray bursts, radio galaxies, active galactic nuclei, pulsars, supernova remnants and micro black hole evaporation predicted by Hawking radiation

James Webb Space Telescope

The James Webb Space Telescope is a Infrared space telescope and Hubble's scientific successor (2014-2015) Specs: 6.5m diameter reflector, sensitive between 0.6 to 28m, orbit around L2, heat shield permanently faces sun Science: deep space imaging, studying galaxy formation and evolution, star formation, and planetary systems

Planck
The Planck spacecraft was launched in 2009 observes anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background and will improve results by Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe Specs: 30-857GHz receivers, Lissajous orbit around L2 Science: cosmological measurements (eg. Hubble's constant, age of universe), search for galaxy clusters, observe active galactic nuclei and radio galaxies