# Celebrating 30 Years of Science from the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope

## TL;DR

This paper reviews 30 years of scientific achievements from the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, highlighting its technological evolution and major discoveries in submillimetre astronomy.

## Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of JCMT's scientific milestones and technological advancements over three decades.

## Key findings

- Discovery of SCUBA galaxies contributing to the far-infrared background
- First images of cool debris disks around stars
- JCMT's role in pushing sensitivity limits in submillimetre observations

## Abstract

The James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) has been the world's most successful single dish telescope at submillimetre wavelengths since it began operations in 1987. From the pioneering days of single-element photometers and mixers, through the first modest imaging arrays, leading to the state-of-the-art widefield camera SCUBA-2 and the spectrometer array HARP, the JCMT has been associated with a number of major scientific discoveries. Famous for the discovery of "SCUBA" galaxies, which are responsible for a large fraction of the far-infrared background, to the first images of huge discs of cool debris around nearby stars, possibly giving us clues to the evolution of planetary systems, the JCMT has pushed the sensitivity limits more than any other facility in this most difficult of wavebands in which to observe. Now approaching the 30th anniversary of the first observations the telescope continues to carry out unique and innovative science. In this review article we look back on just some of the scientific highlights from the past 30 years.