The telescope at Harvard University’s Oak Ridge Observatory outside Boston is the first instrument dedicated exclusively to searching for light pulses from alien civilisations.

Scientists say the project marks a new approach to looking for life in outer space. “The opening of this telescope represents one of those rare moments in a field of scientific endeavour when a great leap forward is enabled,” said Bruce Betts, of the California-based Planetary Society, which funded the $350,000 (£205,000) project. “Sending laser signals across the cosmos would be a very logical way for ET to reach out, but until now, we have been ill-equipped to receive any such signal,” he said.

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI, has been under way since the Cornell University astronomer Frank Drake performed his “Project Ozma” experiment in 1960. Work has focused on detecting radio waves from space that could reveal the existence of intelligent beings. Harvard scientists, for instance, flashed radio signals from Oak Ridge in the hope of communicating with aliens for two dec ades, until a storm broke the observatory’s 84 ft (26m) dish.

In the past decade researchers have begun to wonder whether aliens might use laser-like bursts of light instead of radio transmissions to make contact with Earth. Advocates of this approach note that light, with its higher frequency, could potentially carry vast amounts of information.

The telescope, which will scan the night skies uninterrupted with a 72in mirror, enables scientists to cover 100,000 times the amount of sky observed by current equipment. In only 200 nights, the telescope can scan all the sky visible from the northern hemisphere.

Every second, the telescope can process the data equivalent of all books in print. It has a camera able to detect a flash of only one billionth of a second.

Ben Zuckerman, a University of California astronomer and self-described SETI sceptic, said he had doubts about the project. He said much of the light from space was absorbed by the dust of extinct stars, and suggested that the often-cloudy Boston skies might also interfere.

The Planetary Society said: “In order to start receiving light signals from an alien civilisation, two conditions must be met first: they must be pointing their beam directly at us, and we must be looking for it. We cannot say, of course, what the aliens would do; but with the new dedicated optical SETI telescope, we will now be looking.”

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