The Ultimately Large Telescope was a destroyed NASA idea that is now being revived

What would really be the ultimate telescope? Would he be able to see aliens greeting us from an unknown exoplanet, or perhaps look back through the eons at the beginning of time?

The Ultimately Large Telescope was an idea that NASA paused on ten years ago. Astronomers at the University of Texas are now trying to revive and redesign it, to make this lunar telescope see even more into space – and further back in time – than James Webb. One could glimpse an era 13 billion years ago in which there were no galaxies yet but the first single stars, or “first light”, were formed. These unique stars that continue to elude astronomers were up to a hundred times larger than the Sun. The telescope’s mirror, a rotating disk covered with highly reflective liquid mercury, could detect first light billions and billions of light-years away.

“Also with [the James Webb Telescope], the first stars will remain out of reach, as they are born in small minihalos with too dim luminosity to be detected by even the longest exposure times, “said Volker Bromm, who is co-author of a study recently published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Those stars that remain hidden are known as Population III (Pop III) stars. If the Ultimately Large Telescope, formerly the Lunar Liquid-Mirror Telescope, actually came to life, its liquid mirror technology (as opposed to the coated glass used by most other telescopes) would give it the most powerful eye out there. His mirror is thought to end up being a staggering 328 feet in diameter if this thing really comes to life. While it looks immense, the lighter liquid mirror will make it easier to fly to the moon than lugging a viewfinder with a glass mirror, and a lighter load weight also means a lower launch cost. The Ultimately Large Telescope would have hovered in a crater on one of the Moon’s poles and would have looked into space and time.

The stars that first lit up the dark are so sought after because they are signs of a huge transition that took place after the Big Bang. Pop III stars consist mainly of hydrogen and helium with traces of the metals lithium and beryllium. Their gaseous composition means that none of that gas had been left over from previous star formation events and reincorporated into these stars. It had come straight from the Big Bang. Observing them will allow astronomers to go back to the moment of that transition. Their appearance meant that the universe we live in had begun to evolve from a primeval wasteland to something at least as complex as the human brain. Intelligent life, which would be us, was eventually born on at least one planet. Earth may not be alone.

There is only one problem. No Population III stars have ever been seen, which makes them as hypothetical as the aliens for now.

Some astronomers believe that Pop III stars have long since run out of fuel and now exist only as astral corpses such as white dwarfs, neutron stars or black holes. Their remains could be scattered in space like supernova remnants. However, if a telescope can proverbially squint hard enough to see a star 13 billion light-years away, it would not see that star as it is now, but at the moment of first light or near it. The Ultimately Large Telescope’s liquid mercury disc would rotate at an angle on a vertical axis, which would give it a parabolic surface with extremely precise focus.

We probably have a better chance of seeing the first stars shine in a vacuum than receiving a phone call from intelligent aliens. Even so, if the light from one of these ancient stars is still on its way to the moon, it may take a while.