Tianyan - the Eye of Heaven

[Randy W]

in the Shanghaiist

China hopes to find alien life with world's largest radio telescope, now being built in Guizhou

Quote

Once complete, the single-aperture spherical telescope, called FAST, will surpass the Arecibo Observatory telescope in Puerto Rico to become the biggest in the world. FAST's reflector measures 500 meters in diameter and is made up of 4,450 triangular-shaped panels with sides 11 meters long. Technicians claim that it'll be 10 times more agile than Germany's Effelsberg 100-m Radio Telescope.

. . .

"It will help us to search for intelligent life outside of the galaxy and explore the origins of the universe," said Wu Xiangping, director-general of the Chinese Astronomical Society.

 

Edited February 8, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

FAST is tucked away in a bowl-like valley surrounded by hills, and with no towns or cities within a five-kilometer radius, has optimal "radio silence", according to Xinhua.

 

 

 

Seems like I heard about a similar town in the U.S.

 

United States National Radio Quiet Zone

The most severe restrictions imposed on the general public are only in place within the 20 mile radius of The Green Bank telescope. The NRAO actively police the area for devices emitting noticeably high amounts of electromagnetic radiation such as microwave ovens, WiFi routers and faulty electrical equipment and request citizens discontinue their usage. They possess no legal powers of enforcement (although the FCC can still impose a fine of $50 on violators), but will work with residents to find solutions. Gasoline-powered motor vehicles are forbidden within 1 mile of the telescope as spark plugs within the engine generate noticeable radio interference, resulting in all vehicles needing to be diesel powered.

 

[Randy W]

in the SCMP

 

10, 9, 8 ... China prepares to flick the switch on world’s biggest telescopic eye on the sky

World’s largest single-aperture radio telescope, with diameter of 500 metres, expected to help make major contributions to the understanding of the universe

 

 

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In its push to generate as much basic science as the US by 2020, Beijing has spared no effort in upgrading research facilities.

 

The new telescope cost 1.2 billion yuan (HK$1.4 billion) to build, and an additional 1.8 billion yuan to relocate more than 9,000 residents from its site, state-run Xinhua reported.

 

The relocation was to make sure that no one lived within 5km of the telescope.

 

. . .

 

Ng, who has been using telescopes in the US and Australia for his astrophysical research, said scientists from Hong Kong and elsewhere might head to China in the future to use its advanced facilities.

 

James Cordes, also from Cornell, said he had been invited by fellow astronomers in China to use the FAST in his research on pulsars, gravitational waves and fast radio bursts.

 

 

Edited February 8, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

in the SCMP

China is offering over a million dollars for a foreigner to run the world’s largest telescope, so why is nobody applying?

Only a handful of astronomers might be qualified to run the Fast facility in Guizhou – and the challenges of the job could be putting them off

 

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China is offering more than US$1.2 million to hire a foreign astronomer to run the world’s largest radio telescope, but is struggling to find applicants.

. . .

Whoever becomes Fast’s director of scientific operation would receive a financial package consisting of eight million yuan research funding, a salary comparable with such a role in Western countries and numerous subsidiaries, such as free housing.

 

Such financial incentives have become common as many senior positions for scientists have opened up on the mainland and the nation steps up its efforts to attract high-quality candidates for its rapidly growing research sector.

Fast (the Five hundred-metre Aperture Spherical Telescope) is a giant dish hidden in the remote mountains of Guizhou, a province in southwest China. Guizhou has some of the nation’s largest karst caves and limestone hills. These form depressions that naturally fit the shape of the dish – making it the ideal terrain for a giant telescope.

. . .

“We cannot wait. We have also reached out to qualified scientists around the world through formal or private channels. These senior researchers do not browse job websites very often. We did everything possible to communicate to them our offer,” said the official, who asked not to be named.

 

 

Edited February 8, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[amberjack1234]

This is really funny. Build the worlds largest telescope and don't have anyone to run it. Can you say "status symbol".

[Randy W]

from the SCMP

 

China’s astronomers helped capture photo of black hole but couldn’t use world’s biggest telescope to do it

• Distance no object, but China’s Fast did not take part in cosmic event because it could not properly be tuned in to targets that lie light years away

Black holes cannot be seen because their gravitational pull is so strong that light cannot escape. To draw a clear boundary of a black hole, astronomers turned their attention to light-emitting materials that were sucked into it. To detect these materials, especially those close to the black hole’s event horizon, where gravity is at its strongest, a telescope must be able to pick up very high frequency radio waves to produce a sharp image.

 

Professor Wu Xuebing, director of the department of astronomy in the school of physics at Peking University, said most Chinese telescopes were designed to detect centimetre waves, but the international project is working on energy where frequency is measured in millimetres.

 

“They are looking at different things,” he said. The Fast telescope, for instance, could pick up signals from a pulsar, the kind of star that emits a fixed pattern of electromagnetic waves, but Fast is almost deaf to radio signals from a black hole.

 

Undeterred, Chinese astronomers threw themselves into the EHT programme, which itself began life in 2006. It is not known how many of the 200-plus researchers in the project came from China, but they were credited with “important contributions” to creation of the black hole photo, according to Wu, whose department joined the programme as an affiliated institute.

 

[Randy W]

from the NY Times

At Long Last, a Glimpse of a Black Hole

This week scientists are expected to release images of the silhouette of this elusive and inscrutable astronomical object.

Quote

The theory of general relativity predicts weird phenomena around a black hole, one of which is the extreme bending of light rays that stray close. Matter pulled close by the gravity of the black hole settles into a disc-like formation that “feeds” the black hole, as gas and dust slowly trickle toward the event horizon and into oblivion. The matter that falls into this feeding disc is sped up and heated to such high temperatures that it emits light. In turn, this light skirts around the event horizon.

 

It is this pattern of bent light that the astronomers running the Event Horizon Telescope have been trying to detect — a slightly lopsided glowing ring that would limn the point of no return. It would constitute the silhouette of the black hole.

 

One reason to be excited by the possibility of this discovery is that such images would test Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Will his predictions about how matter and energy behave hold true so close to a black hole? Or might we see a flaw in the theory?

 

 

Edited February 8, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

This is it! from the Sixth Tone on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/sixthtone/photos/a.1604152706570250/2289463558039158/?type=3&theater

Sixth Tone

Page Liked · 1 hr ·

 

Quote

The first-ever picture of a black hole has been unveiled in simultaneous press conferences held in Shanghai, Taipei, Brussels, Santiago, Tokyo, and Washington

 

Edited January 7, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

from China Daily on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/191347651290/posts/10159134409536291/?substory_index=0

Quote

The world's largest single-dish radio telescope #FAST will see 10 percent of its observation time allocated to global astronomers in the year starting April 1. https://bit.ly/3onWmQq

China's FAST not a Tower of Babel but a sky eye for all

Quote

 

The world's largest single-dish radio telescope, now one of a kind after the collapse of the 305 meter vast telescope at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico last December, will see 10 percent of its observation time allocated to global astronomers in the year starting April 1.

 . . .

Believed to be the world's most sensitive radio telescope, FAST has identified more than 240 pulsars since it began formal operations in January 2020. Scientists have published over 40 quality papers based on data collected by FAST.

 

 

[Randy W]

from the Sixth Tone

https://www.facebook.com/1570821646570023/posts/2828646257454216/

Quote

“The West has more experience, but our telescope can detect things theirs can’t.” Over the coming months, China’s giant radio telescope will train its antenna on dozens of galactic coordinates supplied by Zhang Tongjie, who has been tirelessly pushing the country’s search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Read more: http://ow.ly/UwxC50CGvl3

[Randy W]

from Sky&Telescope - JANUARY 13, 2021

CHINA OPENS WORLD'S LARGEST RADIO TELESCOPE TO INTERNATIONAL SCIENTISTS

"Also known as Tianyan, or the Eye of Heaven, FAST is the world’s largest single-dish telescope, situated in a karst depression in Pingtang, Guizhou province in southwest China."

This diagram represents a pulsar detected during FAST's trial period. The telescope came fully online in January 2020.
National Astronomical Observatories of China

This picture shows the karst depression where FAST was built.
National Astronomical Observatories of China

Quote

 

China is making its Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) available to international scientists in the wake of the collapse of the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico late last year.

The National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC), the telescope’s operator, confirmed on January 4th that scientists outside of China will be able to apply for time using the facility on April 1st. A timetable for observation will then be published by August 1st.

 . . .

FAST AND ARECIBO
Like Arecibo, FAST’s receivers are suspended high above the dish. The dish itself consists of 4,450 triangular panels, which can be controlled by more than 2,000 mechanical winches. This allows researchers to maneuver to focus on different areas of the sky.

With a deeper dish and panel system, FAST can cover a swath of sky within 40° of its zenith, while Arecibo was limited to 20°. However, unlike Arecibo, its receivers do not have radar capability, so it cannot investigate near-Earth objects.

FAST is more than 2.5 times more sensitive than Arecibo, according to the National Astronomical Observatories, under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which means that FAST can see fainter sources from farther away. FAST also has a greater effective collecting area (71,000 square meters), than the 305-meter-wide Arecibo (50,000 square meters).

 

 

Edited February 8, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

China's FAST telescope detects coherent interstellar magnetic field
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202201/1245233.shtml

from the Global Times on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/globaltimesnews/posts/4851923034888558

China's FAST telescope detects coherent interstellar magnetic field

By Xinhua
Published: Jan 06, 2022 09:09 AM

Quote

 

Using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), also dubbed as the "China Sky Eye," scientists have obtained accurate magnetic field strength in molecular cloud, a region of the interstellar medium that seems ready to form stars.

Employing the technique of HI Narrow Self Absorption (HINSA), they achieved a clear detection of the Zeeman effect -- the splitting of a spectral line into several components of frequency in the presence of a magnetic field. It is the only direct probe of interstellar magnetic field strength.

The result suggested that such clouds achieve supercritical state, a critical point when they collapse into stars, happened earlier than previously thought based on the standard model.

The study was published in Nature on Thursday.

 

 

[Randy W]

Because it's important that THEY find out about these things, also

China begins construction on world’s most far-reaching radar system, to boost defense against near-Earth asteroid impact

By 

Deng Xiaoci

Published: Jul 10, 2022 10:13 PM

from the Global Times

China Fuyan [facetted eye], a new high-definition deep-space active observation facility in the country's Southwest Chongqing municipality.Photo: courtesy of BIT Chongqing innovation center

Quote

 

In a move to play increasingly role in global efforts to safeguard Planet Earth, China has recently begun constructing a new high-definition deep-space active observation facility in the country's Southwest Chongqing municipality, with goals including boosting its defense capability against near-Earth asteroid as well as sensing capability for the Earth-Moon system.

The new observation facility, codenamed China Fuyan [facetted eye], will be consisted of distributed radars with more than 20 antennas, and each antenna will have a diameter of 25 to 30 meters. Working together, they are expected to carry out high-definition observation of asteroids within 150 million kilometers, the Global Times learned from the project lead, the Beijing Institute of Technology.

The Beijing Institute of Technology Chongqing innovation center, China's National Astronomical Observatories under the China Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University and Peking University will also join the Fuyan construction process, which will become the world's most far-reaching radar system. 

 

 

[Randy W]

Could robots help China save the world’s only giant radio telescope from collapse?

• Five intelligent robots have passed inspection for maintenance work at China’s Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical radio Telescope
• FAST, the world’s largest single-dish radio telescope, is also the world’s only such instrument after the 2020 collapse of Puerto Rico’s Arecibo

from the SCMP

China’s FAST radio telescope in southwestern Guizhou province has taken lessons from the collapse of Puerto Rico’s Arecibo. Photo: Xinhua

Quote

 

There are still major challenges to maintaining a giant telescope. Maintenance workers face difficulties accessing parts due to their size or design, and could themselves cause harm to the structure, FAST engineers told Xinhua.

The five intelligent robots, designed by Chinese institutes, were created specifically to address likely maintenance issues with FAST, the report said.

The smart robots will be able to clean and maintain the telescope’s spherical dish – made up of laser targets underneath reflective aluminium plates. They will also be able to travel along the cables supporting the feed cabin to scan for defects, and assemble and disassemble the receiver from the cabin.

FAST’s receiving dish is made up of thousands of laser targets and millimetre-thin reflector plates, which cannot withstand human weight. Workers have to be partially suspended by a balloon in order to avoid damaging the plates, Tao Rui, a designer of the maintenance robocar, told Xinhua.

According to the CAS’s Institute of Automation, the robocar designed for the dish is able to travel on inclines, at angles of up to 56 degrees, to clean and maintain the rounded structure.

Tao said the weight distribution of the dish maintenance robot or robocar allowed it to traverse the plates without causing damage to the reflectors and targets, which are the most important part of controlling FAST and thus require regular maintenance.