BEIJING – The Five-hundred meter Aperture Spherical Telescope, or FAST forshort, is finally up and running, according to China’s official mediasource Xinhua.
The telescope is the largest filled-aperture radio telescope in the world,and is strategically placed to take advantage of the Dawodang depression, anaturally occurring basin in southwest China.
The idea was first proposed in 1994. Construction of the FAST radiotelescope began in 2011 and it saw it’s ‘first light’ in September 2016.Since then, around three and a half years of testing and commissioning wasput in to reach full operation. In total, the telescope took $170 millionand 20 years to go from idea to reality.
Although the dish shaped telescope technically measures 500 meters indiameter, only 300 meters can be used at a time. The telescope has a fixedprimary reflector located on the aforementioned depression, made of 4450triangular panels of perforated aluminum.
Above the reflector, receiver antennae are suspended using 6 support towersand a cable mechanism. Both the reflector and the receiver antennae can befine-tuned to focus 300 meters of the reflector in any direction needed.
The telescope is a huge step forward in terms of radio telescopes aroundthe world and eclipses the previous largest radio telescope, the AreciboObservatory in Puerto Rico, by a huge margin.
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This opens up a world of possibility to astronomers around the world,because the FAST radio telescope increases the volume of space range byfour times over previous telescopes.
This means that “scientists can discover more unknown stars, cosmicphenomena and laws of the universe, or even detect extraterrestrial life,”according to Li Kejia, a scientist at the Kavli Institute for Astronomy andAstrophysics at Peking University.
The telescope is predicted to be revolutionary in the field of radioastronomy and is expected to make some amazing discoveries in the comingyears.
China plans to allow international researchers to take advantage of thefacility. Therefore, scientists from all over the world, especially Chineseexpats, are booking tickets to China.
