FAST (Photo : FAST)
China's
"Five hundred meter Aperture Spherical Telescope" (FAST) will see
"first light" on Sept. 25 and will immediately begin hunting for
intelligent extraterrestrial (ET) life.
FAST is the world's largest filled aperture (single dish) radio
telescope with a dish consisting of 4,450 triangular panels. FAST is
also the second largest radio telescope after Russia's RATAN-600, which
has a sparsely filled aperture.
FAST consists of a fixed 500 meter dish constructed in the Dawodang
depression, a natural basin or "karst," in Pingtang County, Guizhou
Province, southwest China. Construction of FAST began in 2011 and the
total project cost hit $180 million.
FAST will
search for extraterrestrial life
and monitor China's space program. It will also be used by Chinese
scientists to uncover new secrets of physics and dark matter. The FAST
website in English can be
accessed here.
"FAST's potential to discover an alien civilization will be five to
10 (times) that of current equipment, as it can see farther and darker
planets," said
Peng Bo, director of the NAO Radio Astronomy Technology Laboratory.
Douglas Vakoch, president of METI International, an organization
dedicated to detecting alien intelligence, said FAST "will be able to
look faster and further than past searches for extraterrestrial
intelligence."
"FAST may help explain the origin of the universe and the structure
of the cosmos, but it won't provide warning of Earth-bound asteroids
that could destroy human civilization," said Vakoch.
FAST's field of vision is almost twice that of the Arecibo telescope
in Puerto Rico that's been the world's biggest single aperture radio
telescope for the past 53 years.
It's expected to shine a brighter light on the origins of the
universe by mapping the distribution of hydrogen, the most abundant
element in the universe. FAST will also allow scientists to detect many
more pulsars, which are dense, rotating stars that act as cosmic clocks.
This could give scientists with the capability to detect
gravitational waves -- ripples in spacetime -- that shed light on how
galaxies evolved.
Locating the telescope dish in a natural hollow provides stronger
support for the dish. Locating FAST three miles away from the nearest
inhabited town will give the radio telescope the perfect radio silence
needed to do its job better.