China to Hunt for Alien Life With World’s Biggest Radio Telescope
China to Hunt for Alien Life With World’s Biggest Radio Telescope
By Charlie Campbell, MSN News, July 4 2016
An aerial view of the Five hundred meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) on June 10, 2016 in Qiannan Buyei and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, China. ( © VCG via Getty Images)
China is joining the search for extraterrestrial life with construction of the world’s biggest and most sensitive radio telescope.
The final piece of the 500 m Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope, or FAST, has been fitted , the BBC reports, and operations are slated to begin in September. The radio telescope is designed to “search for intelligent life from outer space,” according to China’s state broadcaster CCTV.
The $185 million device, which is constructed into a natural karst depression in southwest China’s Guizhou province to protect it from electromagnetic disruption, has a one-mile circumference and comprises [of] nearly 4,500 panels. After debugging, it will be used to detect for pulsars over 1,000 light years deep into the universe.
“Understanding the fundamental physics of pulsars will help us understand the Big Bang,” Yue Youling, associate researcher of National Astronomical Observatories, told CCTV. “Now we only know what happened after the Big Bang, everything before that relies on our calculation. Therefore, there are a lot of uncertainties.”
China is investing heavily to become a global player [in] science and technology, and the ruling Communist Party is well aware of the propaganda mileage to be made. In late May, President Xi Jinping called for China [to] become a “world leader” in science by the centenary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 2049.
“Great scientific and technological capacity is a must for China to be strong,” Xi told a conference in Beijing.
On Wednesday, the People’s Daily newspaper — the Communist Party mouthpiece — listed the FAST telescope among eight Chinese achievements that were supposedly “shocking the world.” Others include satellites, bridges and a supercomputer.
—With reporting by Yang Siqi / Beijing
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Carl Sagan would have been happy.
I love Carl Sagan's books.
I wonder how the Chinese are going to react when they find alien life abounds in outer space.
I would assume they would react similar to the way the rest of the world would react. Who knows what it would lead to? Mars Attacks? War of the Worlds? The Day the Earth Stood Still? Cocoon? Close Encounters of the Third Kind? Contact? The Last Starfighter? There are lots of possibilities it could lead to.
Buzz, since you live in China you are requested to keep us abreast of what the Chinese reaction is when alien life is discovered.
Do you think that they'll start building ''islands'' in space? Inquiring minds want to know.
They plan on going to the moon in the near future, so who knows if they'll colonize it as a start. After all, what do you do with 1.4 billion people?
They can have the moon, but stay away from the ''Red Planet'', it belongs to us.
LOL
Well, if you're talking matching colours, they'll look for a yellow planet.
I'm checking my inter planetary map to find a yellow planet, Buzz.