European and Chilean engineers have begun blowing the top off Chile's Cerro Armazones mountain to pave the way for the construction of the world's most powerful telescope.

Yesterday's massive blast was the first of many in the coming months that will remove 220,000 cubic meters of rock from the top of the 3,064 meter tall mountain in the Antofagasta Region of Chile.

Like Us on Facebook

The destruction of the mountain top will make way for building a platform with a size of 150 meters by 300 meters on which will be built the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT), the world's largest telescope.

The 40 meter-class telescope can collect thirteen times more light than any comparable telescope in the world. When operational, the E-ELT's location in a privileged zone for optical astronomy with 89% cloudless nights a year should deliver images 16 times sharper than those from the orbiting Hubble space telescope.

The E-ELT will be able to see the birth of stars and galaxies in amazing detail. It will be so powerful it can collect enough light to look to the observable limit of the Universe, or immediately after the Big Bang when the first stars and galaxies formed.

Dr. Aprajita Verma, deputy project scientist for the E-ELT's UK team at the University of Oxford, said the telescope is a really huge step in terms of its scale because it's so much bigger than anything else.

"It will give us a deeper and finer view of the Universe," he said.

Dr. Verma said the E-ELT will allow astronomers "to look at the planets directly, look at their atmosphere and potentially look for signs of life."

The telescope will also provide a detailed view of exoplanets or other worlds outside of our solar system.

The construction of the E-ELT will begin once the mountaintop has been leveled. Construction will see the laying and maintenance of a paved road, the construction of the summit platform and the construction of a service trench to the summit. These activities are expected to take 16 months.

The entire project is expected to take 10 years to complete and will cost in excess of a billion Euros. It is being built by the European Southern Observatory, which has 15 member states.