Mauna Kea is the site of many major telescopes. Its viewing conditions are the finest of any Earth-based observatory. The site lies at an elevation almost twice that of any other major observatory and above 40 percent of the Earth’s atmosphere; there is thus less intervening atmosphere to obscure the light from distant stellar objects.
In total there are twelve facilities housing thirteen telescopes at or around the summit. How tall are the buildings? That was a shock to find out. The proposed height of the Thirty Meter Telescope is eighteen stories.
This has attracted controversy due to the potential cultural and ecological impact. The multi-telescope "outrigger" extension to the Keck telescopes, which required new sites, was eventually canceled. Three or four of the mountain's 13 existing telescopes must be dismantled over the next decade with the TMT proposal to be the last area on Mauna Kea on which any telescope would ever be built.
In Hawaiian religion, the peaks of the island of Hawaii are sacred. An ancient law allowed only high-ranking aliʻi to visit its peak. You can imagine all kinds of people trekking up to the peaks for their scientific endeavours.
I thought the same would be true of Niagara Falls. It was a sacred site to the many tribes in the area. I am in awe of the geology - 13,000 years ago, when the first Indigenous peoples viewed the falls, it was located near where the present-day Lewiston-Queenston bridge is located. That is a distance of approximately 9 kilometres from its current location.
We know Niagara today as a tourist place. Niagara is so "touristed" that Atlas Obscura names one of the sacred spaces as the Living Water Wayside Chapel on the River Road where only six people can sit inside "this delightfully quaint sanctuary."
Our picture today is my version of Under the Volcano. | 
