![\"Artist's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/webb-telescope-nasa.jpg\")
Credit: NASA-GSFC, Adriana M. Gutierrez (CI Lab)<\/p>\nWhen Yerkes Observatory opened in Wisconsin in 1897, it was a wonder.<\/p>\n
Alongside the great one-metre (40-inch) telescope \u2013 the largest refractor ever built \u2013 the lavish facilities included the novelty of chemical and physical laboratories to support the new science of astrophysics.\u00a0<\/p>\n
All this scientific largesse was the gift of Charles Yerkes, a tycoon with a fortune derived in part from building bits of the London Underground.<\/p>\n
Credit: NASA-GSFC, Adriana M. Gutierrez (CI Lab)<\/p>\n
Private support of even the grandest cutting-edge facilities was the norm, and only after the Second World War did telescopes \u2013 and, later, space missions like Hubble \u2013 become so expensive that government support was essential.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s marvels, from JWST to the Vera Rubin Observatory, are funded mostly by taxes allocated to science agencies. That\u2019s just the way it has to be.<\/p>\n
Or does it?<\/p>\n
![\"View](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/vera-rubin-milky-way.jpg\")
View of Vera C. Rubin Observatory beneath the glittering band of the Milky Way. Rubin Observatory, located in Chile, will use an 8.4-meter telescope equipped with the largest digital camera in the world to conduct a 10-year survey of the entire southern hemisphere sky. Credit: NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory
\nThe new private space telescope<\/p>\n
A new space telescope has been announced, Lazuli, with a three-metre (10ft) mirror capable of observing in the optical and infrared.<\/p>\n
This makes it larger than Hubble, and it will fly a sophisticated spectrograph and camera, plus a coronagraph for spotting planets around nearby stars.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What\u2019s really notable is that the entire cost of Lazuli is being covered by Eric and Wendy Schmidt (Eric used to run Google), who are writing a cheque for what must easily be hundreds of millions of dollars.<\/p>\n
The paper claims the team can move faster than a space agency by accepting more risk and using technologies \u2013 particularly in camera design \u2013 that haven\u2019t yet been proven to work in space. Lazuli could be flying, they say, in three to five years.<\/p>\n
![\"Lazuli](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/lazuli-space-telescope.jpg\")
Artist’s impression of the Lazuli Space Observatory. Credit: Schmidt Sciences
\nWhat Lazuli could find<\/p>\n
By then, astronomers will be swimming in alerts for transient events \u2013 supernovae, novae and other short-lived phenomena \u2013 from the Vera Rubin Observatory and gravitational-wave observatories.<\/p>\n
While Hubble, say, needs at least a few days\u2019 notice to swing to a new target, Lazuli will respond to new alerts in under four hours \u2013 perhaps even within 90 minutes.<\/p>\n
If Lazuli can swing into action so quickly, it\u2019ll play a big role in understanding the formation and evolution of black holes and other exotic objects.<\/p>\n
It may even help with the Hubble Tension<\/a> crisis in cosmology, where current methods for measuring the speed of expansion of the Universe<\/a> disagree slightly, but significantly.<\/p>\n The onboard spectroscope is important. Rapidly capturing the spectra of transients like AT2018cow, a bright, fast-changing explosion caught a few years back, might explain why they remain surprisingly bright in the infrared so long after their initial explosion.<\/p>\n Spectroscopy of exoplanet atmospheres, making use of the three-metre mirror, will help us understand what these new worlds are like.<\/p>\n The coronagraph will allow the discovery of planets in Jupiter-like orbits around nearby stars, paving the way for the next really big taxpayer-funded space telescope, the Habitable Worlds Observatory, which will do the same for worlds in Earth-like orbits.<\/p>\n The Roman Space Telescope \u2013 due for launch this year \u2013 does have a similar instrument on board, but Lazuli\u2019s slightly larger mirror, aided by a design that stops the secondary mirror from blocking the primary, has a slight advantage.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s very exciting. If the accelerated schedule is achieved and the risk-taking pays off, astronomers in almost every field will have cause to celebrate a remarkable act of generosity.<\/p>\n![\"Could](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/explosion-in-space.jpg\")
Could the Lazuli Space Observatory finally nail down the rate of the expansion of the Universe? Credit: Alfred Pasieka\/Science Photot Library<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Roman-space-telescope-12e16d1-e1653654778440.jpeg\")
The Nancy Grace Roman Telescope will use microlensing to search for exoplanets. Credit: NASA<\/p>\n