World’s largest telescope to begin operations

The Chinese-built telescope will soon start searching for interstellar signals from its base in the Guizhou Province

The Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), the world's largest radio telescope, will begin its debugging and testing stage.

Construction of FAST, located in the southwestern China’s Guizhou Province, was completed on 25 September by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The telescope boasts the world's largest aperture, at 500m, and has a total area equal to 30 football fields. It not only surpasses the Arecibo Observatory – once the world’s largest single-aperture telescope – in size, but also in sensitivity and overall performance.

When it is put into operation, Fast will contribute to the observation of celestial bodies, making it possible to generate theories and models to verify modern physics and astronomy. CAS hopes the telescope will also push forward new discoveries.  

“Once completed, Fast will lead the world for at least 10 to 20 years,” said Yan Jun, director general of the telescope’s designer, builder and owner, the National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC) under CAS.

Fast was designed, developed and constructed entirely by Chinese scientists. It will enable scientists to conduct a range of observations such as the survey of neutral hydrogen in distant galaxies, faint pulsars, probe interstellar molecules, and search for possible interstellar communication signals.

Although it is a Chinese research facility, the telescope will be open to the international scientific community.

“As soon as the telescope works normally, the Time Allocation Committee (TAC) will distribute observation time according to the scientific value of the proposals,” said Nan Rendong, FAST’s general engineer and chief scientist. “Proposals from foreign scientists will be accepted as well. There will also be foreigners on the TAC.”

The FAST project was first envisaged in 1994. After more than 10 years of site surveying and key technology research, it was finally approved by the Chinese government in 2007.

Construction of the telescope began in 2011 in Pingtang County, Guizhou Province, which is famous for its mountains that naturally protect against radio frequency interference.