NASA reveals groundbreaking new telescope could detect alien life within 'hours'

The search for alien life in space might just have received a significant upgrade, as NASA have now revealed a new telescope that's capable of detecting key information in just a matter of hours.

Although you could head to a number of key American states to increase your chances of spotting an alien abduction, the efforts of NASA and other space agencies when it comes to searching for alien life are far more focused on the realms of outer space.

Former astronauts have revealed that the biggest challenging in contacting aliens is finding them in the first place, yet a new groundbreaking telescope is in the process of being built that's capable of doing this within a matter of 'hours'.

While it might not be quite as big as the now-cancelled Overwhelmingly Large Telescope, the aptly-named Extremely Large Telescope provides scientists with unprecedented technology when it comes to studying life outside of Earth.

The Extremely Large Telescope will be the largest of its kind, streching 40m across with a cost of $1 billion overall (ESO/AFP via Getty Images)

Once construction is completed by roughly 2028 the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) will be considered the largest optical telescope on Earth, stretching 40 meters across and has the capacity to collect 15 times more light than the next largest of its kind.

It's such a significant project that the European Southern Observatory has flattened an entire mountain in a Chilean desert in order to complete the $1,000,000,000 project, but it'll hopefully be more than worth the money and effort once it's up and running.

As reported by Indy100, one of the key features of the ELT is its capacity to provide a faster and far more effective means of scanning for alien life across space.

It would do this by identifying what's known as 'biosignatures', which are in essence chemical signs of life on planets, and current estimates indicate that using this on planets orbiting Proxima Centauri over four light-years away would take just 10 hours.

Scanning larger planets could also provide quicker results, with those roughly the size of Neptune estimated to only take an hour.

For comparison, technology current available to astronomers can take anywhere between days and even years to complete identical tasks, so once the ELT is finally put into service we could see a dramatic increase in the number of attempts to find alien life out there.

Scientists using the ELT will be able to scan for alien life across the galaxy in a matter of hours (ESO)

A recent study published in academic journal arXiv illustrates the potential capabilities of the ELT, detailing: "In the near term, ELT reflected light observations will likely allow us to characterize multiple nearby terrestrial atmospheres, and ultimately search for signs of habitability and life."

While all sights might be set on Mars for Earth's next exploration missions right now, the data provided by the ELT could open up countless doors for future astronauts, and play a big role in informing where our next great space exploration - and even colonization - efforts are routed.