World's Largest Telescope to Find New Worlds?

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What is a nation to do with its project to construct the world’s largest telescope? Well, name it the European Extremely Large Telescope or E-ELT, for short. But don’t let the name fool you, while the telescope is being funded, designed and constructed  by the European Southern Observator, it’s home is to be in the Chilean mountain range called Cerro Armazones. Why Chile and not Europe, you ask? Well, the Cerro Armazones mountain range is a prime location for a telescope of this magnitude for a number of reasons.

First of all, the Chilean mountain range of Cerro Armazones has a height of approximately 3,064 m (10,052 ft). Couple that with the fact that the mountain range receives, on average, 320 cloudless nights a year and the reason the ESO chose Cerro Armazones as the home for the European Extremely Large Telescope becomes very apparent.

While the telescope has no official estimated completion date, it’s been reported that the ESO is to spend around €1.5 billion (~$2 billion) to complete it. But that ridiculous sum of money won’t go to waste as the E-ELT lives up to its name with a diameter of 138 feet which blows the previous record holder of 98 feet, the Thirty Meter Telescope, out of the water.

You may be asking yourself, why in the world would we need a 2 billion dollar, 138 foot telescope? Well, the find other worlds, of course. The E-ETL has the ability to shed light on planets in other solar systems giving astronomers a glimpse of their atmosphere which, with a bit of luck, may possibly lead to the discovery of other life-supporting worlds, much like our own Earth.

Like I said before, there is no telling when the European Extremely Large Telescope will be completed but with all of the funding and expertise behind it, the chances of us finding extraterritorial life may have increased a good amount. Or so we hope.