Sharjah24 – Reuters: The clear skies of Chile's arid Atacama Desert are a favorite for those studying the composition of the universe, but now experts are looking to take the next step: detecting the existence of life on other planets.

On land adjacent to the Las Campanas observatory, some 480 kilometers (298 miles) north of the capital Santiago, an international consortium of universities and scientific institutions is building the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), which will have a resolution 10 times greater than that of the Hubble space telescope.

The US$1.8 billion complex, which is expected to begin operations by the end of the decade operations toward the end of the decade, will compete with ESO's Extremely Large Telescope - located farther north in the same desert - as well as the TMT being built in Hawaii.

The GMT will have seven of today's largest rigid monolithic mirrors that will ultimately provide a single optical surface 24.5 meters in diameter, with a total collecting area of 368 square meters.