China begins to assemble 500 meters radio telescope

Soheil_Esy

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2015-07-23

Technicians began assembling the world's largest radio telescope, whose dish is the size of 30 football grounds, deep in the mountains of southwest China's Guizhou Province on Thursday.

In the afternoon, technicians began to assemble the telescope's reflector, which is 500 meters in diameter and made up of 4,450 panels. Each panel is an equilateral triangle with a side length of 11 meters.

Once completed, the single-aperture spherical telescope called "FAST" will be the world's largest, overtaking Puerto Rico's Arecibo Observatory, which is 300 meters in diameter.

Nan Rendong, chief scientist of the FAST project with the National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, told Xinhua that the bigger the dish is, the more capable the telescope is and the weaker messages it will receive.

"A radio telescope is like a sensitive ear, listening to tell meaningful radio messages from white noise in the universe. It is like identifying the sound of cicadas in a thunderstorm," he said.

With a perimeter of about 1.6 km, it will take about 40 minutes to walk around the telescope.

The giant dish is built upon a naturally-formed bowl-like valley in the southern part of Guizhou.

"There are three hills about 500 meters away from one another, creating a valley that is perfect to support the telescope," said Sun Caihong, chief engineer of FAST's construction, explaining the reason why this site was chosen.

The Karst formation in the local landscape is good for draining rainwater underground and protecting the reflector, Sun said.

The surrounding area has "radio silence" as there are no towns and cities within a sphere of five km and only one county center within a sphere of 25 km, he said.

The huge dish is actually hung over the ground supported by thousands of steel pillars and cables. There will be maintenance passages under it.

To overlook the whole reflector, visitors have to climb up to the top of one of the hills. A hill-top observation platform is under construction and will be open to the public, Sun said.

Not only will it be huge, the new telescope is also very sensitive.

The dish can shift to receive radio from different angles, said Zheng Yuanpeng, chief engineer of the telescope's panel project.

"Panels can change their positions through connected wires and parallel robots. We can control their position with an accuracy of 1 mm," Zheng said.

The new telescope is expected to greatly enhance Chinese scientists' capacity to observe outer space.

Wu Xiangping, director-general of Chinese Astronomical Society, said that for years Chinese scientists have worked on "second hand" data collected by others and failed to achieve breakthrough.

"Having a more sensitive telescope, we can receive weaker and more distant radio messages. It will help us to search for intelligent life outside of the galaxy and explore the origins of the universe," Wu said.

The construction of the telescope began in March 2011 and is set to finish next year.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-07/23/c_134441260.htm

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Soheil_Esy

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China's supercomputer to support world's largest radio telescope

2015-07-28

Supercomputer Skyeye-1, capable of a quadrillion computing operations per second, will support space exploration by the world's largest radio telescope based in southwest China's Guizhou Province.

Assembly of the telescope, with a dish the size of 30 football fields and located deep in the mountains of Guizhou, has got underway, according to Dawning Information Industry Co., which participates in its construction.

When it is completed in 2016, the five hundred meter aperture spherical telescope (FAST) will be the world's largest, overtaking Puerto Rico's Arecibo Observatory, which is only 300 meters in diameter.

A radio signal as far as tens of billions of light years away could possibly be caught by the telescope, which will extend China's space tracking scope from moon's orbit to the outside edge of the solar system upon its completion next year.

As FAST needs strong computing system to support massive data storage and processing, Institute of Computing Technology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences(CASICT), Dawning Information Industry Co. and China (Guizhou) Skyeye Group signed agreement last November to jointly build a Qiannan Super Computing Center in Guizhou.

FAST daily peak demand will be above 200 teraflops per second and its first-phase storage demand will be more than 10 petabyte, said Zhang Peiheng, a researcher with the CASICT.

Skyeye-1, with its quadrillion computing operations per second and high-speed network of 100 gigabytes per second, can easily meet the demands of the telescope, said Ren Jingyang, vice president of Dawning Information Industry Co..

The construction of the telescope began in March 2011 in a natural, bowl-shaped valley in the southern part of Guizhou.

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Tianhe-1 supercomputer

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Photo taken on July 27, 2015 shows the assembly site of the single-aperture spherical telescope "FAST" in Qiannan of southwest China's Guizhou Province.

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Technicians work at the assembly site of the single-aperture spherical telescope "FAST"

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http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-07/28/c_134455055.htm
 
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Soheil_Esy

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New video shows progress in construction of China's 500m Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST)

Oct 2, 2015

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Soheil_Esy

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New aerial shot showing China's 500 metre FAST radio telescope - the world's largest - nearing completion

16 December 2015

Two months since the last updates. Truly the land of the never sleeping nights. In the West, it would have taken a year...:hmm:


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