China fits final piece on world’s largest radio telescope

It has been designed in such a way that it is capable of detecting presence of alien life. It was fitted into the center of the radio telescope’s dish.

On Wednesday, the People’s Daily newspaper – the Communist Party mouthpiece – listed the FAST telescope among eight Chinese achievements that were supposedly “shocking the world”.

Construction of FAST began in the south-western province of Guizhou in 2011, and it is situated in a natural crater-like feature called a karst that is ideal for housing the colossal concave disc.

Scientists are expecting to explore a number of things using this telescope. Among the seven FAST receivers, five were from China while two were co-produced by Chinese, American and Australian developers. “I hope scientists can make epoch-making discoveries”, Liu Cixin, a renowned science fiction writer and victor of the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel, was quoted by the agency as saying.

It will become operational in September and will be used to search for extraterrestrial life, but don’t expect to hear about FAST aiding in major discoveries right away.

The FAST will replace Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory, which is 300 meters in diameter, as the world’s largest telescope.

According to chief FAST scientist, Nan Rendong, this world’s largest single aperture telescope is specifically located at a very remote and extremely radio-quiet location.

The installation was overseen by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

China’s Aperture Spherical Telescope, or FAST, could have the ability to detect alien life, as it searches space for odd objects such as neutral hydrogen, faint pulsars, and low frequency gravitational waves, according to China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency.

The 1.2-billion yuan ($240 million) radio telescope will be a global leader for the next one to two decades, Mr Zheng added.

On an immediately practical scale, the telescope will reportedly be used to track spacecraft involved in China’s rapidly growing space programme.