The largest radio telescope in the history «FAST» was put into operation in China

The Chinese all-seeing eye" - so was called new telescope «FAST» ( «Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope), the last stage of which was completed July 3, 2016. As recently as the day before yesterday was installed last reflecting panel and successfully completed the main phase of the construction of the telescope, thus having from the top step rating telescope of the Arecibo Observatory (Puerto Rico), with a diameter of 300 m. The radio telescope FAST, with of an area of 30 football fields, and a diameter of 500, consists of 4450 meters of the individual plates.

As reported by the Xinhua news agency FAST will be the perfect research tool for Chinese astronomers. It will provide an opportunity to observe the unusual space objects, to study the birth and evolution of the universe and even capture signals of interstellar communication, expand the search for extraterrestrial life to a new level. The FAST radio telescope construction cost $ 184 million. According to Chinese experts, it will be a "global leader" for at least a couple of decades.

The construction the world's largest radio telescope was preceded by more than 10-year-old research. Construction began in March 2011.

FAST will be able to bring the science of studying the cosmos on an unprecedented new level by opening many opportunities outside the range of our current technologies. Researcher from the Chinese Academy of Sciences said:

"As the most sensitive one-mirror telescope FAST will be able to capture more distant radio sources (masers) and most accurately calculate their radial velocity. This will greatly improve location accuracy of these sources and increase the accuracy of the time measurements of pulsar emissions. This in turn will help in the search for the stochastic background of gravitational waves and lead to the creation of a new independent time standard based on the long-term stability of the pulsar rotation. In addition, FAST will be able to work as a very powerful supporting ground stations for future space missions."

It is appropriate to recall that the space agency NASA recently found another exoplanet, and together with ESA for the first time confirmed the existence of gravitational waves. Access to the capabilities of a much more powerful and accurate radio telescopes in this regard, opens to the scientific community in their studies entirely new perspectives.

Researchers will conduct first studies in September this year.