Atlast! Nasa to build the world's most powerful telescope - and it could be our key to finding alien life

Nasa has already begun to lay out plans for their next space observatory in the hope of one day tracking down alien life.

Called the Advanced Telescope Large-Aperture Space Telescope (Atlast), the mission concept builds upon key technologies developed for Hubble and the JWST.

 

They add that, while Hubble and JWST will last for many years into the future, the agency is already looking ahead to the telescope and instrument requirements needed to answer the questions posed in Nasa’s 30-year vision.

The 30-year vision has three main goals: Are we alone, how did we get here and how does the universe work.

'One of the killer apps currently planned for Atlast is the ability to detect signatures of life in the atmospheres of Earth-like planets in the solar neighborhood,' Dr Clampin said.

While other observatories will image larger exoplanets, they would not have Atlast’s advanced ability to identify chemicals that may indicate the presence of life in these far-flung, Earth-size worlds.

Atlast’s large primary mirror would enable other scientific investigations, too.

In addition to studying star and galaxy formation in detail, Atlast would be able to resolve stars in galaxies more than 10 million light-years away and star-formation regions of sizes greater than 325 light years anywhere in the universe.