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World's largest radio telescope testing underway in China

By Allen Cone
Installation was completed on the world's largest radio telescope in July in Pingtang, China, and a ceremony marked the opening Sunday. Photo by giohy.com
Installation was completed on the world's largest radio telescope in July in Pingtang, China, and a ceremony marked the opening Sunday. Photo by giohy.com

PINGATANG COUNTY, China, Sept. 25 (UPI) -- Testing has begun on the world's largest radio telescope, which was built in the Guizhou Province in southwest China.

Chinese scientists reported the mammoth dish, which measures 2,640 feet across and contains 4,450 reflector panels, is already receiving its first signals from space.

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The Five-hundred-meter Single-Aperture Radio Telescope, or FAST, opened at a ceremony Sunday.

"This is very exciting," Professor Peng Bo, deputy project manager of FAST, told the BBC. "For many years, we have had to go outside of China to make observations -- and now we have the largest telescope. People can't wait to use it."

The telescope took five years to build at a cost of $105 million in a mountainous area. Also, 9,100 local residents were relocated in 2009 to four settlements at government expense and each person was given $1,800 to ensure a silence zone around the facility. Ethnic minority households facing housing difficulties were given another $1,500.

No residents live within 3 miles of the telescope and the hills around the depression form an equilateral triangle.

The former record holder, the Aricebo Observatory in Puerto Rico, is only 1,000 feet.

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The Chinese telescope "listens" for radio waves emitted by objects in space.

"Normally a traditional telescope will take about two years to become fully functional, but FAST is so big, I would say we need three years before it is open to the world," Peng said.

But he said scientists can perform some experiments.

"It's a hugely ambitious project, and it's been carried out very efficiently. It's probably come on stream faster than any of us would have expected for such a complex project," Simon Garrington, associate director for Jodrell Bank Observatory in England, told BBC.

FAST was first brought online in July for trial observation, including data from a pulsar about 1,351 light-years away, according to the Xinhua news agency.

China plans to use one of its best supercomputers, the SkyEye-1, to process the massive amounts of data from FAST. It will require computing power of over 200 teraflops per second.

via GIPHY

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