China completes work on 500-meter telescope designed to search for alien life

midian182

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China has finished work on the world’s largest single-aperture telescope. The Five Hundred Meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) will search for extraterrestrial life and be used to explore the universe when it starts operations in September.

"The project has the potential to search for more strange objects to better understand the origin of the universe and boost the global hunt for extraterrestrial life," Zheng Xiaonian, deputy head of the National Astronomical Observation under the Chinese Academy Sciences, told Xinhua news agency.

The last of FAST’s 4450 panels were fitted over the weekend, completing five years of work that cost a total of $180 million. Its 500-meter width – the size of 30 soccer fields - makes it nearly twice the size of Puerto Rico's Arecibo Observatory, and it will be ten times more sensitive than the steerable 100-meter telescope in Germany.

The Chinese media reports that over 9000 residents living within a 5km distance of the telescope were relocated to nearby settlements to ensure there’ll be no magnetic interference. Each person will reportedly be paid 12,000 yuan (around $1838) – about an average year’s wage in the area - with extra money going to those from ethnic minorities.

In its first two or three years of operation, FAST will undergo further adjustment, during which time it will be used for early-stage research. Once this is complete, its functions will be opened up to scientists from across the world.

In addition to searching for aliens, FAST will be used for surveying natural hydrogen in distant galaxies, and to detect faint pulsars and gravitational waves.

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Well, it is an impressive achievement, but pails when you consider how many starving Chinese could have been fed with all that money.
 
DoH! China! You don't have to look to the stars for signs of ET. Just look at social media, clearly, some of the "people" there are not...."people".
 
...[ ]....Am I the only one who just sees a Battlefield 4 map?
No, I see a plot of land where Foxconn could have built another iPhone factory. Thereby shi**ing up American society with the damned things, more than it already has been.
 
*facepalm*
No. We have no money...

Am I the only one who just sees a Battlefield 4 map?


Hmmm.... I wonder if our military gets its ammo from China.

" Seize fire! Seize fire! Yall haven't shipped us more crappy ammo that jams the guns you sent us "
 
I think we are all wrong on what China is actually building. It looks like a giant wok to me, maybe they are going to feed all the starving people of the world.
 
I think we are all wrong on what China is actually building. It looks like a giant wok to me, maybe they are going to feed all the starving people of the world.
Well one thing's for sure, the takeout will be cold as ice if it's got to come all the way from there...:D

Oddly, I thought the "wok", was a Japanese thing. Jus' shows ta go ya, how culturally stunted the failing American school system has left us! (Er, I mean me. Sorry).
 
Well one thing's for sure, the takeout will be cold as ice if it's got to come all the way from there...:D

Oddly, I thought the "wok", was a Japanese thing. Jus' shows ta go ya, how culturally stunted the failing American school system has left us! (Er, I mean me. Sorry).


*nerd* I was top of my class too! *nerd*

Maybe the Chinese chose to make a wok because they have always been such good friends with the Japanese ;)
 
The wok is Chinese, man did no one here ever watch "Wok with Yan" on TV? It was on the CBC tho.......
 
With this array I would definately get to find out whats out there. aliens do exist but they are too far away or maybe they just avoiding us
 
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