China puts world’s largest radio telescope into use

By Mahmut Atanur

BEIJING (AA) – China began operating the world’s largest radio telescope Sunday as astronomers and enthusiasts attended the official launch of the mission aimed at exploring space and searching for signs of extraterrestrial life.

State news agency Xinhua reported that the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope's (FAST) project cost almost 1.2 billion yuan ($180 million) since it began in 2011, and is stationed in a mountainous region of southwest Guizhou province.

The telescope's main structure is a reflector, made up to 4,450 1.3-millimeter-thin panels, whose diameter is the size of 30 football fields.

The deputy general manager of the FAST project described the telescope as “so huge in size” and the technology used in its driving device and reflecting surface as having “never been used before".

“A paraboloid of 300 meters in diameter will be formed timely on the deflecting surface with the help of the driving device to receive signals,” The China Daily quoted Zhang Shuxin as saying. “We need to gain experience and explore the right methods to ensure detection accuracy for that.”

The project is part of China’s efforts to develop its space and technology programs.

Last month, the country launched the world’s first quantum satellite -- Quantum Experiments at Space Scale, or QUESS -- designed to establish "hack-proof" communications.