Five-Hundred Aperture Spherical Telescope : In News
China has kicked off a second phase of construction to enhance the capabilities of the Five-Hundred Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST).
- Five-Hundred Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) is a radio telescope in China’s Guizhou Province.
- It is the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope, with a receiving area equivalent to 30 football fields.
- It measures 500 meters in diameter.
- Scientific Goals:
- Detect neutral hydrogen at the edge of the universe; reconstruct the images of the early universe;
- Discover pulsars, establish a pulsar timing array, and participate in pulsar navigation and gravitational wave detection in the future;
- Join the International Very-Long-Baseline Interferometry Network to obtain hyperfine structures of celestial bodies;
- Perform high-resolution radio spectral survey;
- Detect weak space signals;
- Participate in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
- FAST uses a data system developed at ICRAR (International Center for Radio Astronomy) in Perth, Australia, and at ESO (European Southern Observatory) to manage the huge amounts of data it generates.
