World's largest radio telescope in Guizhou, China

[JSCh]

PINGTANG, July 3, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Balloons are released to celebrate the complete installation on the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in Pingtang County, southwest China's Guizhou Province, July 3, 2016. Installation was completed on the world's largest radio telescope on Sunday morning as the last of 4,450 panels was fitted into the center of the big dish. Scientists will then begin debugging and trial observation of the FAST. (Xinhua/Ou Dongqu)

 

[beijingwalker]

 

[TaiShang]

World's largest radio telescope to help uncover mysteries of early universe
2016-07-01

Photo taken on June 27, 2016 shows the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope, or "FAST," at sunset in Pingtang County, southwest China's Guizhou Province. Construction of the world's largest telescope FAST started in March 2011. The telescope will be used to detect and collect signals and data from the universe. [Photo: Xinhua/Liu Xu]

Scientists across the world say they have high expectations for China's 500-meter aperture spherical telescope, or FAST, which is now entering its final stages of construction in the southwestern province of Guizhou.

The world's largest single-dish telescope is about to undergo rigorous testing before going into official use.

Once fully operational it will also contribute to the SKA - Square Kilometer Array - Project, which brings together teams from ten member countries, with the aim of answering the fundamental questions about the origins and evolution of the Universe.

Philip Diamond, director of the SKA Organization, believes that FAST will make a vital contribution to the project as a whole.

It's the largest single radio telescope on the planet and me, myself, and many scientists around the world are really looking forward to our first beginning observations, beginning to observe different objects in the universe. It will see signals all the way back to the Big Bang, to the start, almost to the Big Bang, close to the start of the entire universe. It will uncover things that we've never seen before."

Technology from the Chinese telescope is being applied to SKA antennas currently under construction in Australia and South Africa.

 

[AndrewJin]

Guizhou Province seems to be walking along quite a different development route. She knows it's nearly impossible to compete with other provinces in manufacturing, hence puts more efforts in high-tech and tourism, the former one offering cutting-edge technological marvels, the latter one offering jobs and of course the hidden natural wonders. Foxconn invests hugely in Guizhou not merely into assembling but more investment into cloud tech. Guizhou is also one of the few provinces that attain the goal that every county is linked to the China's controlled-access expressway network. Best wishes to this so-called poorest province. Late this year we will once again focuse on Guizhou Province when Guiyang-Kunming section of Shanghai-Kunming HSR opens to the public.

 

[ahojunk]

Once fully operational it will also contribute to the SKA - Square Kilometer Array - Project, which brings together teams from ten member countries, with the aim of answering the fundamental questions about the origins and evolution of the Universe.

Late this year we will once again focuse on Guizhou Province when Guiyang-Kunming section of Shanghai-Kunming HSR opens to the public.

.
@AndrewJin
Isn't there already HSR to Guiyang?
Can these foreign scientists ride the HSR to Guiyang and then transfer to the FAST site?

 

[grey boy 2]

Some nice pictures

 

[grey boy 2]

 

[TaiShang]

World's largest radio telescope to be commissioned and in use in late September

Xinhua, September 8, 2016

​

The aerial photo taken on July 3, 2016 shows the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in Pingtang County, southwest China's Guizhou Province. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)

The world's largest radio telescope will be completed and in use in late September, accompanied by regulations to protect the facility.

The construction of the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope, or FAST, has entered its final phase in Pingtang County in the mountainous southwestern province of Guizhou.

With a dish the size of 30 football fields, FAST, which measures 500 meters in diameter, dwarfs Puerto Rico's 300-meter Arecibo Observatory.

The provincial legislature passed a rule to guarantee the safe operation of the facility. The rule will come into effect on Sept. 25, said a source with the Qiannan Observatory.

Under the regulation, FAST requires radio silence within a 10-kilometer radius.

Construction of irrelevant projects will be prohibited in the core area and violators will be fined up to 100,000 yuan (about 15,000 U.S. dollars).

The regulation also bans activities such as hunting, wood gathering or land reclamation in the core area, and underscores forest fire prevention work.

The rule sets Sept. 25 as the prefecture's astronomical science day.

Construction of the FAST began in March 2011 at a cost of 1.2 billion yuan.

Some 8,000 people in the core area will be relocated.

The photo taken on July 3, 2016 shows the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in Pingtang County, southwest China's Guizhou Province. Installation was completed on the world's largest radio telescope on Sunday morning as the last of 4,450 panels was fitted into the center of the big dish. Scientists will then begin debugging and trial observation of the FAST. (Xinhua/Ou Dongqu)

 

[grey boy 2]

World's largest radio telescope updates

 

[Shotgunner51]

Once fully operational it will also contribute to the SKA - Square Kilometer Array - Project

Good news! On top of this FAST telescope in Guizhou, Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, Guangzhou National Super Computing Center (Tianhe-2 Supercomputer) are already supporting SKA project.

https://defence.pk/threads/square-k...on-chinese-supercomputer.445642/#post-8606932

 

[AndrewJin]

Let's have a look at the county where FAST is located!

Pingtang County, Guizhou Province, Southwest China
FAST from 2:05

@Götterdämmerung @Godman @Star Wars @StarCraft_ZT @Kaptaan @waz @Gibbs @Species @Lure @anant_s @Bussard Ramjet @Ankit Kumar 002 @PARIKRAMA @PARIKRAMA @Echo_419 @Danish saleem @PaklovesTurkiye @AViet @xiao qi @kaykay @kecho @Viet @LA se Karachi @Two @pzkilo @alarabi @oprih @Malik Abdullah @T-123456 @maximuswarrior @cranwerkhan @bbccdd1470 @Three_Kingdoms @Brainsucker @simple Brain @X-2. @Taygibay @Arsalan @shah1398 @muhammadali233 @Jf Thunder @Talwar e Pakistan @Arbiter @yesboss @Mista @grey boy 2 @Jlaw @bolo @faithfulguy @Maira La @T-Rex @UKBengali @Odysseus @Nilgiri @Aether @Fattyacids @Darmashkian @Kaptaan @AZADPAKISTAN2009 @Sky lord @faithfulguy @Zibago @saiyan0321 @el che @Mugwop @S.U.R.B. @Rasengan @xiao qi @Dungeness @ahtan_china @endyashainin @vostok @senheiser @kankan326 @Zulkarneyn @DoTell @proud_indian @TheTheoryOfMilitaryLogistics @Cossack25A1 @OrionHunter @rott @Anjo @Abba_Dabba_Jabba @Areesh @Huan @RISING SUN @Dungeness @PaklovesTurkiye @Dandpatta @KRAIT @anas_nurhafidz et al

2013

2015

July 2016

Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO)

China Jinping Underground Laboratory Extension

 

[onebyone]

By Katie Hunt, CNN
Updated 2214 GMT (0614 HKT) September 21, 2016

Now PlayingChina's giant telescope
Source: CNN

China's giant telescope 01:09
Story highlights

• The telescope's dish is the size of 30 football fields
• More than 9,000 people have been uprooted to make way for huge project

Hong Kong (CNN)The search for alien life just got bigger. A lot bigger.

The world's largest telescope will be completed this week in China and it has scientists very, very excited.
With a whopping 1,640 feet (500 meter) wide dish the size of 30 football fields, the telescope will able to detect radio signals -- and potentially signs of life -- from distant planets.
"China's latest telescope will be able to look faster and further than past searches for extraterrestrial intelligence," says Douglas Vakoch, president of METI International, an organization dedicated to detecting alien intelligence.
Cradled in a karst hollow in the mountainous landscape of southwest China, the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope, or FAST, starts operation September 25.
It's a process known by astronomers as "first light" -- when a telescope opens its eyes and takes its first pictures of the universe.
And FAST is wide eyed: its field of vision is almost twice as big as the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico that has been the world's biggest single aperture telescope for the past 53 years.

Russia's RATAN-600 telescope is larger than FAST by diameter with panels arranged in a 576 meter wide ring -- but it's not one single dish and its collection area is much smaller than FAST and Arecibo.

Decade to find right location
Construction of the $185 million mega project began in 2011, with the last of the 4,450 triangular panels that form the dish painstakingly lowered into place in July this year.
While the structure itself is too big to move, each of the panels can be adjusted.
"You can control the surface to point at certain points in the sky. A mesh of steel ropes allows a hydraulic push and pull mechanism," says Andreas Wicenec, professor of Data Intensive Research at the International Center for Radio Astronomy Research in Australia.

Its remote location in China's Guizhou province was one of 400 places scientists surveyed over 10 years. The egg-cup shaped valley is perfectly sized and the surrounding mountains provide a shield against radio frequency interference.

It was once home to "Green Water Village" a remote settlement of 12 families that had no electricity. The 65 villagers are among 9,110 that authorities uprooted in order to help improve the telescope's listening capabilities.

"I never thought the first time I would move would be to make way for a telescope," former villager Yang Chaolan, 62 told Xinhua, China's official news agency.

Her son plans to open a restaurant in the town they have been relocated to in the hope the feat of engineering will bring tourists to the poor region.

FAST is almost twice as the Arecibo Observatory, Puerto Rico.

Little green men?
The telescope is expected to shed light on the origins of the universe by mapping the distribution of hydrogen, the most abundant element in our galaxy and beyond.
"Because of FAST's incredible sensitivity, it will be able to chart the hydrogen distribution even in far flung galaxies," says Vakoch.

FAST will also enable scientists to detect many more pulsars -- dense, rotating stars that act as cosmic clocks. This could provide scientists with the capability todetect gravitational waves -- ripples in space-time -- that shed light on how galaxies evolved.

An aerial shot of the telescope under construction.
But for many people, the most exciting goal is the search for extraterrestrial life.
The recent discovery of three life-friendly planets outside our solar system has rekindled discussion of whether intelligent life is unique to Earth.
FAST's sensitivity will be capable of detecting exoplanets like these in ways that other telescopes cannot.
"FAST's potential to discover an alien civilization will be five to 10 (times) that of current equipment, as it can see farther and darker planets," Peng Bo, director of the NAO Radio Astronomy Technology Laboratory, told Xinhua.

Follow
People's Daily,China

✔@PDChina
World’s largest radio telescope FAST in SW China's #Guizho to operate from Sept. 25

 

[onebyone]

Ambitions space program
FAST also underpins China's bold space program, which is kicking into high gear.
Last week, Beijing launched the Tiangong-2 space lab -- a precursor to a 20 ton space station. It's also set for its longest crewed mission in October aboard the Shenzhou-11 spacecraft.
China's space ambitions



How astronauts prepare

Longer term goals include putting a man on the moon and sending a robotic probe to Mars.
The telescope could help track some of these missions, says Wicenec.
However, there are limitations on what the telescope can do. It's unable to project the trajectories of comets or asteroids for example.
"FAST may help explain the origin of the universe and the structure of the cosmos, but it won't provide warning of Earth-bound asteroids that could destroy human civilization," says Vakoch.
China has long been secretive about its military-linked space program, but the scientists CNN spoke to for this piece expected Beijing to be open to international cooperation.
Chinese astronomers are expected to receive priority on the telescope for the two to three years and then it will be opened to scientists worldwide.
"It's a prestige project but astronomy is very international. China is no exception," says Wicenec.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/21/h...s%2Fcnn_topstories+(RSS%3A+CNN+-+Top+Stories)

 

[ahojunk]

I have merged a number of related threads and removed all the junk posts.

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'FAST' telescope starts operation in Guizhou
2016-09-25 11:38 chinadaily.com.cn Editor:Feng Shuang

Editor's note: The world's largest single-aperture spherical telescope, "FAST", starts operation in a karst valley in Pingtang county, Guizhou province, on Sunday. The size of 30 football fields, the 500-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope dwarfs Puerto Rico's 300-meter Arecibo Observatory. Construction began in March 2011 at a cost of 1.2 billion yuan ($179 million).

This scene shows the night view of the 500-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope in Pingtang county, Guizhou province, June 27, 2016. (Photo/Xinhua)

This scene taken from FAST's viewing platform shows the panorama of the 500-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope in Pingtang county, Guizhou province, Sept 24, 2016. (Photo/Xinhua)

Visitors pose for photo on the viewing platform of "FAST", the 500-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope, in Pingtang county, Guizhou province, Sept 24, 2016. (Photo/Xinhua)

A model of the solar system is displayed at "FAST", China's Single-Aperture Spherical telescope, in Pingtang county, Guizhou province, Sept 24, 2016. (Photo/Xinhua)

This scene shows the panorama of the 500-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope in Pingtang county, Guizhou province, Sept 24, 2016. (Photo/Xinhua)

The feed cabin is installed on "FAST", the 500-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope, in Pingtang county, Guizhou province, Sept 7, 2016. (Photo/Xinhua)

China's single-aperture spherical telescope "FAST", in Pingtang county, Guizhou province, Sept 24, 2016. (Photo/Xinhua)

This scene shows the panorama of the 500-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope in Pingtang county, Guizhou province, Sept 7, 2016. (Photo/Xinhua)

 

[JSCh]

China's giant telescope may lead to "discoveries beyond wildest imagination": U.S. expert
(Xinhua) 15:16, September 25, 2016

Photo taken on Sept. 24, 2016 shows the 500-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in Pingtang County, southwest China's Guizhou Province. The FAST, world's largest radio telescope, measuring 500 meters in diameter, was completed and put into use on Sunday. (Xinhua/Ou Dongqu)

WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- China's 500-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) may help better understand the origin and structure of the universe and accelerate and even revolutionize the search for life beyond Earth, a renowned U.S. alien intelligence expert said Saturday.

FAST, the world's largest single-dish telescope with a diameter of a half kilometer, is expected to go online on Sunday. It is located at the Dawodang depression, a natural basin or "karst" in Pingtang County in the mountainous southwestern Chinese province of Guizhou.

The telescope, nicknamed Tianyan, or the Eye of Heaven, can accurately image twice as much the sky as the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, which had previously been the world's largest single-dish radio telescope, with double sensitivity and five to 10 times the surveying speed.

Douglas Vakoch, president of METI International, an organization promoting messaging outer space in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, noted that astronomers worldwide 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," he told Xinhua, saying it may lead to "discoveries beyond our wildest imagination."

As for FAST's scientific missions, Vakoch said it 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," he said.

"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," said Vakoch. "We can expect China to become a world leader in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence because of its demonstrated commitment in building FAST."

However, FAST will not initially be outfitted with the signal processing capabilities to search for aliens, he said. This technology will be added at a later stage, and when that happens, FAST will be able to scan the heavens for signals that "can't be created by nature, but only by advanced civilizations," Vakoch said.

Based on the recent history of radio telescopes, he also predicted that FAST will lead to "a dramatic increase in the number and variety of pulsars discovered." Pulsars, one of FAST's main scientific objectives, are dense, rotating stars that act as cosmic clocks, emitting pulses with remarkable regularity.

This could also provide scientists with the capability to detect gravitational waves, or ripples in space-time, from pairs of massive black holes, since FAST has the potential to precisely measure tiny changes of the pulsing rates of pulsars as the gravitational waves pass by.

Vakoch highlighted FAST's role in underpinning China's space program, noting that China has made great breakthroughs in space exploration, such as putting humans into Earth orbit and having taikonauts to dock with an orbiting module as a first step toward developing a Chinese space station.

"With the opening of FAST, China continues to demonstrate that it is a world leader in space exploration, now from an Earth-based observatory as well as from space," he added. "Astronomers around the world can be grateful to China for creating an observatory that may lead to discoveries beyond our wildest imagination."