Hubble Space Telescope now awaits its bigger and better brother! The slot will be occupied by a proposed High Definition Space Telescope (HDST) which is already in the planning stages by a group of leading astronomers.

The HDST will help to explore the prospects of life by studying the atmospheres of dozens of Earth-like alien planets. It would thus, serve as a flagship observatory for the global astronomical community.

An event at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York on July 6 hosted by the director of the museum's Hayden Planetarium, Neil deGrasse Tyson, publicized the report of this project when a panel of scientists discussed the forthcoming HDST.

The report, produced by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) revealed that proposed HDST, to be released sometime in the 2030s will have a resolution 25 times greater than that of Hubble and a 39-foot-wide multi-piece mirror which is also quite bigger than Hubble's 7.8 feet wide mirror.

Tyson asserted at the event that bigger telescopes see deeper into space with better detail, which means that not just you will see the objects you already know about, better but several all-new phenomena will manifest themselves owing to this higher level of technology.

Tyson added, "And that is what we're actually after here-not simply understanding what we already know a little better. The HDST has the potential to make significant, field-changing discoveries".

The $8 and $9 billion HDST will employ ultraviolet, optical and infrared light to view the universe and would be placed in a region about 932,000 miles from Earth, known as the second Lagrangian point. The vantage placement would give HDST, a clearer and darker sky than the Earth-orbiting Hubble and will also reduce background noise from images.