James Moorhouse
Science has come a long, long way in the past few decades, but we are yet to find conclusive proof of life beyond Earth.
It seems pretty likely that there's some form of alien life out there given the vast universe we live in, and telescopes are a fantastic way to appreciate just how much there is out there, with NASA's James Webb Space Telescope in particular treating us to some fantastic views from beyond Earth in recent times.
Scientists have long considered the possibility of life on Mars thanks to our many visits to the red planet, with the Mars Rover regularly sending back interesting photos that seem to suggest that there is intelligent life out there.
But now, a new telescope in Chile claiming to be the 'world's biggest eye on the sky' could completely transform the way we look at the world beyond the relatively small planet we live on.
The aptly-named 'Extremely Large Telescope' (ELT) is the work of the European Southern Observatory (ESO).
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They been planning to develop the revolutionary ground-based telescope since 2005, with the programme approved in 2012 and the green light for construction at Cerro Armazones in Chile’s Atacama Desert given at the end of 2014.
The first 18 of the 798 segments for the ELT primary mirror arrived at the ELT Technical Facility in Chile in January of this year, while 2023 marked more than 50 percent of the project being completed.
Once it is completely ready, it is expected that the telescope will give us results which will lead to a 'paradigm shift in our perception of the Universe', with the ESO suggesting that it could produce results as groundbreaking as the initial invention of the telescope by Galileo 400 years ago.
The ESO say: "The ELT will track down Earth-like planets around other stars, and could become the first telescope to find evidence of life outside of our Solar System.
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"It will also probe the furthest reaches of the cosmos, revealing the properties of the very earliest galaxies and the nature of the dark Universe."
A recent study, which was published on March 11 by researchers from the University of Washington and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, also suggested that the ELT could potentially detect signs of alien life within just hours.
We may have to wait until December 2030 until we see the first scientific observations from the telescope but there certainly seems to be a great deal of excitement surrounding the ELT and if it can conclusively prove the existence of aliens out there, let's just hope that they're friendly.