Good ol’ ‘ Murica may be in advance of China in development , GDP , and political clout , but China just finishedbuilding the world ’s largest radio telescopeand is now good - equipped at searching for foreigner .
According toXinhua , about 300 “ builders , experts , science fable enthusiasts and newsman ” watched the installation of the Five - hundred - meter Aperture Spherical Telescope , or tight , in the southerly Formosan province of Guizhou . The task took five years and $ 180 million to finish , and the reflecting telescope covers the area of roughly 30 football fields .
FAST is almost twice as large as the next big radio scope , which is in Puerto Rico . It will be used for former - stage research by Taiwanese scientist for a twosome years , and then be used more wide . FAST is capable of detect gravitational wave , pulsar and , eventually , amino acids on other planets .
Everything descend with a price . In rescript to make room for FAST , the Chinese governmentdisplaced 9,000 people who lived in the country , and to do so paid these people only about $ 1,800 . The government could have done much good here but considering China ’s long history of displacing people ( over 40 million displaced since the 1970s ) , this is a relatively paltry bit .
Let ’s hope the scope lives up to its promise . As Liu Cixin , a Taiwanese sci - fi author who won the 2015 Hugo said , “ I hope scientists can make epoch - establish discoveries . ”
[ XinhuaviaThe Next Web ]
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