To discover whether or not we ’re truly alone in the universe , China has built the world ’s magnanimous , most potent , and potentially most expensive single - aperture radio telescope , the BBC reports . The $ 185 million project start in 2011 , and this retiring week , builder match the Five - hundred - meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope ( FAST ) with its last piece . Starting in September , FAST will be used to canvas pulsars , surveil indifferent atomic number 1 in distant galaxies , discover molecules , and research outer space for radio set wave transmitted by extraterrestrial animation .
Until recently , the world ’s largest telescope was the984 - foot - wide-eyed Arecibo Observatoryin Puerto Rico . In compare , FAST is more than 1640 feet wide . Its 4450 triangular - shaped panels will be used to pick up radio signaling from as far as 1000 light - years away . The BBC compared FAST to the size of it of 30 football fields , and one scientist who worked on the project said that if the scope were filled with wine-coloured , each of the humans ’s 7 billion dweller could drink five bottles of it . ( We ’ll toast to that . )
FAST during construction . range credit : Getty Images
“ The size of this scope is key to its scientific impingement , ” Tim O’Brien , a prof of astrophysics at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom , toldNew Scientist . “ The large the scope , the more radio waves it collects and the fainter object it will be able-bodied to see . ”
FAST was establish into a natural karst depression in China ’s southwesterly Guizhou responsibility to protect it from electromagnetic disruption . It ’s hail as one of the res publica ’s greatest technological achievement — but asThe Guardianreports , the giant scope is n’t without controversy . To make elbow room for construction , China relocated more than 9000 house physician of the neighboring Pingtang and Luodian counties from their home earlier this year . They were compensated only 12,000 yuan each ( roughly $ 1800 ) for the move .
To see FAST in its in full completed glory , train out the video above , courtesy ofThe Telegraph .
[ h / tBBC ]
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