World's largest telescope to unravel mysteries of universe opens today in Chile

London, March 13: This is called the £1billion 'time machine' which could finally reveal mysteries of the universe.Made up of 66 giant antennae which can gather the faintest radio waves from space for processing by a supercomputer, the ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter Array) is located in the Chile desert, the world's coldest desert, at a height of 16,400 feet, roughly half the cruising height of a jumbo jet. The ALMA telescope will begin working from today. By collecting radio waves rather than optical light, ALMA can look through the dense dust clouds of deep spaceIt looks like it belongs in a science fiction film but this ‘time machine' could provide us with the facts about where we came from, reports Daily Mail.Four of the first ALMA antennas at the Array Operations Site (AOS), located at 5000 metres altitude on the Chajnantor plateau, is in the II Region of Chile. The full telescope of 66 antenna is set to be switched on today after a decade of construction The Chilean desert is one of the driest places on Earth.Costing £950million to build, including around £65million from the UK, and billed as being ‘in search of our cosmic origins', it is hoped it will provide answers as to where the stars, the planets, and, ultimately where we came from.By collecting radio waves rather than optical light, ALMA can look through the dense dust clouds of deep space.This will give astronomers a glimpse of galaxies from just after the Big Bang.It can also look at how individual stars and planets are formed. This could shine a light on our creation as it is believed the elements spewed out by dying stars went on the seed the sun, the planets and, eventually, humans.It will also tell us more about where life came from by finding traces of compounds from water to chemicals similar those in DNA.Brian Ellison, of the Science and Technology Facilities Council and ALMA's UK project manager, said: ‘It is said we are all made of stardust.‘ALMA will answer certain questions about where we came from.'The telescope, which was part-built by British companies, has yet to run at full power. But when all the dishes are operating in unison , the resulting images should be ten times sharper than those of the Hubble space telescope.To get such pictures from a single land-based radio telescope, it would have to be ten miles wide.The Chilean desert was chosen because it is one of the few places in the world where it is still possible to find a high, dry location unaffected by pollution from artificial light.Dryness is particularly important as moisture in the air absorbs the radio waves the dishes are trying to capture.