China Finishes Building Its Alien-Hunting Telescope

Work has finished on the world's largest radio telescope, which will hunt for extraterrestrial life and explore space, reports Chinese news agency Xinhua. The world's most populated nation fitted the final of 4,450 panels into the centre of the 500m-wide Aperture Spherical Telescope, or FAST, over the weekend. The telescope, which cost $180 million -- and took five years to build -- will be switched on from September. Zheng Xiaonian, deputy head of the National Astronomical Observation under the Chinese Academy Sciences said: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.Gizmodo adds:FAST is almost twice as large as the next biggest radio telescope, which is in Puerto Rico. It will be used for early-stage research by Chinese scientists for a couple years, and then be used more widely. FAST is capable of detecting gravitational waves, pulsars and, eventually, amino acids on other planets.

Comments

Nefarious reasons

[Dunbal]

Of course you'd like to think the Chinese wish to be the first to contact aliens to ensure that a cultured, civilized race be the first to make contact. The real reason, however, is they want to be the first to find out if ground up alien pseudo-pods increase your libido and if alien tastes better than cat.

Re:Nefarious reasons

[NotInHere]

So it's a fabrication that "traditional Chinese medicine" uses a lot of weird shit to make impossible claims?

Its a global issue. In the USA, you have people who think the earth was created six thousand years ago, and evolution is wrong. Would you want them to make contact?

Is it completely untrue that many Chinese still eat animals people in the West might consider pets?

Yes, just as many westerners still eat animals that people in India might consider to be sacred cows. Also, we poison animals that people in India think to be holy as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Its just a cultural thing.

In fact, all the science fiction movies/books have some US agency dissecting the aliens. Its not the chinese who dissect (or eat) them, its the some branch of the US Government.

Living in a western country, I would obviously prefer that the USA made first contact rather than china, but that still doesn't mean that china will do a horrible job at it, or would first eat the aliens or something.

Re:What if the Chinese make First Contact?

[Maritz]

To be fair, I'd rather be unfairly judged by an alien looking at a chinese guy than one of you guys. Nothing personal.

Re:It's called "Arecibo"

[MightyYar]

There isn't really anything gained by the more specific term. Those in the know will already understand that the reference is to Arecibo, and those who do not know will have one less thing to Google.

also, NSF is de-funding Arecebo

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only is the Chinese facility twice as large, but the Arecibo telescope's funding is going away. and the NSF is desperately looking for someone to take it over. The NSF's funding has been flat for quite a while, but their expenses are going up and they need to trim programs.

This is all nicely metaphorical of China's rise as the world's major superpower, and the decline of the US. China is pouring huge funding into science and technology, and the US is cutting programs and shutting down major facilities.

Re:What if the Chinese make First Contact?

[Coisiche]

It has long been assumed that when First Contact were to happen, it would involve representatives of the American government

You mean it has long been portrayed in English speaking movies that are invariably made in the USA.

Re:What if the Chinese make First Contact?

[hackingbear]

But what if it were actually the Chinese who made First Contact? What if the aliens end up being forced to work in factories, making shoes up to 18 hours a day?

Then the American government will cite it as another evidence in its annual Human Right Report and promptly deport those aliens to Mexico.

"Alien-hunting telescope"? Really, guys?

[Idarubicin]

"Alien-hunting telescope"? Really, guys?

A large-scale pure-science project. A tool that will advance modern astrophysical and astronomical research. A landmark technical achievement.

But it came from funny-looking furriners (not just funny-talking, like them ones from Yurp). So we must be sure to cast the headline in the most derisive terms possible. It's not a research tool that shoestring SETI projects will be able to snag a bit of time on--no, it's an "alien-hunting telescope".

I mean, my God--snippets of Aricebo's time have been used for alien-hunting (and alien-spamming) for decades. It was used to send publicity stunt messages to M13 in 1974, and to some nearer stars in 2009. SETI@home users have been crunching Aricebo data looking for little green men since 1999. And yet, oddly enough, no one ever seems to refer to Aricebo as an "alien-hunting telescope". Why is that?