Japan, China, India, the US and Canada have joined hands to build the world's biggest telescope near the summit of the dormant Mauna Kea volcano on Hawaii Island. The telescope will be placed above the clouds at 13,796 feet, thereby offering a clear and deep view of the skies above for 300 days a year.

Light condensing capability of the 30-meter telescope, or TMT, will allow it to identify any object as small as a coin from a distance equivalent to 500 km. Scientists will be able to see 13 billion light years away and get a glimpse of very old stars from 200 million to 400 million years after the Big Bang.

Kyodo News Agency has reported that the construction is expected to finish by 2022. The cost for the project is estimated to be £935m, with Japan to provide 25% of the amount and India and China to contribute their shares as well.

Hawaii was picked ahead of other locations for being free of air pollution attributable to its isolated position in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Mauna Kea is at a higher elevation and has dry air and minimal temperature fluctuation, which are being considered the best for the new telescope. However, the TMT will no longer boast to be the biggest telescope once the massive European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) project at Chile's Atacama Desert is completed.

Some astronomers and officials from the five countries are slated to meet during a ceremony at a location 4,012 meters high on Mount Mauna Kea on Tuesday to mark the start of construction of TMT.

The new telescope will further enhance the understanding of the cosmos, said Astronomer Masanori Ie, a professor at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan who leads the Japanese team on the TMT project.