World’s most powerful telescope ATLAST to be built by NASA to track alien’s life

The Royal Astronomical Society, London on 24 June 2014 unveiled the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) plan to build ATLAST or Advanced Technology Large Aperture Space Telescope in Portsmouth. Once, built, it will be the World’s most powerful and largest telescope.

The telescope will be able to analyze the environment of other planets and able to track the existence of aliens life. The telescope will track the species which are about 30 light years away.

The telescope will be prepared and set up in space itself, due to the large size of telescope it is not possible to send the telescope to space from earth via rocket.

For the setting up the telescope, NASA will send a group of astronauts to space via Orion rocket.

Features of the ATLAST telescope

•    The telescope will be about four times larger than the existing 44 feet- Hubble Space Telescope.

•    The mirror inside the telescope will have a diameter of around 52 feet, which will be the largest mirror ever created by any man on Earth.

•    The telescope will be located at a distance of 10 lakh miles.

•    Telescope to be ready by 2030

According to Scientists, the telescope will help astronomers in exploring more than 60 odd new planets. It will also give insights into the proportion of oxygen and other gases in space, which either is, the reason for sustaining life on other planets, or vice-versa.