China’s Eye of Heaven

The world’s largest radio telescope nicknamed Tianyan, or the Eye of Heaven, began operation on Sunday. The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope, or FAST, is cradled in a natural limestone depression in Pingtang county of Qiannan Buyi and Miao ethnic autonomous prefecture in Guizhou province, Southwest China.

FAST will observe pulsars as well as explore interstellar molecules and interstellar communication signals (or, hunt for extraterrestrial life), Xinhua News Agency said.

Work on the nearly 1.2-billion-yuan ($180 million) project started five years ago, and the installation of the telescope’s main structure — a 4,450-panel reflector as large as 30 football pitches — was completed in July.

President Xi Jinping sent a letter congratulating the project’s scientists and engineers for their achievement, and encouraging them to continue to make breakthroughs in astronomy.

The telescope has received a set of highquality electromagnetic waves sent from a pulsar about 1,351 light-years away, according to the National Astronomical Observation under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which executed the project.

More than 8,000 people were resettled to make way for the project, because it requires radio silence within a 5-kilometer radius.

Chinese experts said the telescope, designed and built by Chinese scientists, will remain the global leader for the next 10 to 20 years. And NAO said China will roll out more “world-class” telescope projects in the coming decade.