The construction of a fully steerable 110-m aperture radio telescope, also known as the QiTai radio Telescope (QTT), kicked off on September 21 in Qitai County of China's northwest Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
The QTT project will build a 110-m aperture fully steerable radio telescope with superior performance and highly reliable operating states that combines highly efficient observation parameters. The telescope will be built by Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory (XAO) of the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) over a period of six years.
With its high sensitivity and unprecedented diameter, QTT will be able to survey three-quarters of the sky, including the centre of the Galaxy and south of the galactic centre.
QTT is expected to make significant contributions to scientific investigations in several science frontiers, such as the discovery of more fast radio bursts, and the research of the dark matter, black holes, gravitational waves, celestial bodies and the origins of life in the universe.
As a major national science and technology infrastructure in astronomy, QTT will also provide strong technical support for China's deep space exploration.
Design model of the fully steerable 110-m aperture radio telescope (Image by DU Jieya)
Technicians have begun assembling the world's largest radio telescope, with a dish the size of 30 football grounds, deep in the mountains of southwest China's Guizhou Province. Yesterday afternoon, they began to assemble the telescope's reflector, which is 500 meters in diameter and made up of 4,450 panels. Each panel is an equilateral triangle with sides 11 meters long.
China has started assembling the world's largest radio telescope as it looks to improve its ability to explore outer space. The 500-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope, or FAST, rests in a bowl-shaped valley in the southwestern province of Guizhou. The telescope will have a dish the size of 30 soccer fields when it is completed.
86-10-68597521 (day)
86-10-68597289 (night)
86-10-68511095 (day)
86-10-68512458 (night)
cas_en@cas.cn
52 Sanlihe Rd., Xicheng District,
Beijing, China (100864)
Copyright © 2002 - Chinese Academy of Sciences
