It sounds crazy, but hear us out. The proposed telescope could even detect the very first stars in the universe.
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00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:04 From exoplanet discoveries to the first image
00:06 of the black hole, astronomers have really outdone themselves
00:10 these past years, which goes hand in hand with telescopes
00:13 getting more powerful.
00:14 But it takes a little creativity to keep pushing boundaries.
00:17 IFL Science reports astronomers are now
00:20 proposing we should build a liquid mirror
00:22 telescope on the moon.
00:24 A team from the University of Texas at Austin
00:26 say they want to build an untimely large telescope,
00:30 which would have a primary mirror that's
00:32 330 feet across, bigger than any other telescope in the works.
00:37 To reach this size and the correct shape,
00:39 the mirror would have to be made of a constantly spinning
00:41 reflective liquid.
00:43 It sounds crazy to build it on the moon,
00:44 but without the effects of Earth's atmosphere,
00:47 this would give the telescope unmatched clarity.
00:50 This was first proposed by a University of Arizona team
00:53 back in 2008 with the Lunar Liquid Mirror Telescope.
00:57 And updated calculations published
00:59 in the Astrophysical Journal suggest
01:01 it could even detect the universe's very first stars.
01:05 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:08 (upbeat music)