26th September 2016 World's largest radio telescope is operational The Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) has become operational in Guizhou Province, southwest China.
Another entry on our timeline has become a reality, as a major new telescope has just been completed in China, following more than five years of construction and testing. The Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) is located in Guizhou province, southwest China. Half a kilometre wide and with a collecting area of 2.1 million sq ft (196,000 sq m), it is now the largest single-aperture telescope in the world. It dwarfs the previous record holder, the Arecibo observatory in Puerto Rico, which has a diameter of 305 metres. FAST is able to gaze three times further into space and survey the skies ten times faster than Arecibo. Its primary roles will include mapping the neutral hydrogen within the Milky Way at very high resolution, tripling the number of known pulsars from 2,000 to 6,000, and listening for possible signals from alien civilisations at distances of up to 1,000 light years. Far more stars will be monitored than in previous surveys. The dish itself sits within a natural depression and is unable to be moved, due to its enormous size. However, the surface shape is changeable and the feed cabin (where radio waves are focused) can be moved around. This provides a viewing angle of up to 40° from the vertical. The telescope became operational during a ceremony yesterday. In recent tests, the dish was able to detect radio waves from three pulsars, which are extremely dense and rapidly rotating stars. Over the next few years, astronomers from around the world will be invited to use the facility through a competitive review of observing proposals. "By opening FAST to use by the broader international community, China is demonstrating its commitment to fostering astronomy as a global scientific enterprise," said Douglas Vakoch, the president of METI International. He told the Xinhua news agency that it may lead to "discoveries beyond our wildest imagination."
FAST will be used to look for the signatures of complex organic molecules in interstellar space, which will show how widely the basic building blocks of life are distributed throughout the cosmos. "For over a half century, astronomers have been using radio telescopes to answer the haunting question, 'Are we alone?' But astronomers face a daunting challenge: the signals they seek are so weak that an incredibly sensitive telescope is needed to detect them," said Vakoch. "FAST's innovative design and huge collecting area give it unsurpassed speed and sensitivity, making it vital to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence in the coming decades. We can expect China to become a world leader in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence because of its demonstrated commitment in the building of FAST." The telescope will also provide scientists with the ability to detect gravitational waves – or "ripples" in space-time – from pairs of massive black holes, since FAST has the potential to measure tiny changes in the pulsing rates of pulsars as the gravitational waves pass by. Wang Qiming, chief technologist for the facility, said FAST would remain a world-leading project for the next 10 to 20 years. Meanwhile, Yan Jun, head of the National Astronomical Observation (NAO), said China will roll out more "world class" telescopes in the next five to 10 years. ---
Comments »
|
