In order to create a flat surface to host the largest optical telescope in the world, engineers have blown up the top of a mountain in Chile.

The European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) will house a 40m-diameter mirror and is to be built on top of 3,064m tall Cerro Armazones mountain in the Sierra Vicuña Mackenna of the Chilean Coast Range.

Astronomers will use the state-of-the-art telescope to search for habitable planets in distant solar systems, and possibly help make observations that will unlock some of the fundamental mysteries of the universe.