'There's no telescope this large ever built. It's not like we have a precedent for how to do these things,' Giant Magellan Telescope engineers on why they used the Unreal Engine to build an unprecedented telescope simulator

Giant Magellan Telescope BOB system.

High atop a 2,514-foot plateau in Chile’s dramatic and arid Atacama Desert sits a window into our universe – the Giant Magellan Telescope.

Just 40% complete and with a price tag of over $2.5 billion, the massive telescope with its 25.5-meter mirror may be our best chance to find a planet like ours, called an exoplanet – and, perhaps, even life like ours.

But that dream could be almost a decade away, and in the meantime a consortium of countries, universities, scientists, and engineers must complete the project and learn how to work it safely and maintain it.