We might be able find aliens using the heat their civilizations give off, astronomers say, but it will take a megatelescope to do the job. The development of such a telescope is in the works.
The telescope — called Colossus — would be a massive 250-foot (77-meter) telescope, which is more than double the aperture of any telescope yet constructed.
To keep costs down, the proposed $1 billion telescope would use thin mirror technology and few large aperture mirror segments to build Colossus. The sensitivity of the scope could be enough to spot cities or other signs of aliens for planets as far as 60 to 70 light-years from Earth, its backers said. Read more…
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