Slashdot Mirror
China's Giant Radio Telescope Begins Searching For Signals From Space (ctvnews.ca)
Years of work and millions of dollars later, China finished its alien-hunting telescope in May this year. Now the country says its telescope has begun its operation. The company flipped the switch over the weekend, hoping to find signals from stars and galaxies -- and more importantly from extraterrestrial life. The telescope also illustrates China's growing ambition to stay among the frontrunners in space efforts. AP reports: Beijing has poured billions into such ambitious scientific projects as well as its military-backed space program, which saw the launch of China's second space station earlier this month. Measuring 500 metres in diameter, the radio telescope is nestled in a natural basin within a stunning landscape of lush green karst formations in southern Guizhou province. It took five years and $180 million to complete and surpasses that of the 300-meter Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, a dish used in research on stars that led to a Nobel Prize. The official Xinhua News Agency said hundreds of astronomers and enthusiasts watched the launch of the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope, or FAST, in the county of Pingtang. Researchers quoted by state media said FAST would search for gravitational waves, detect radio emissions from stars and galaxies and listen for signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life. "The ultimate goal of FAST is to discover the laws of the development of the universe," Qian Lei, an associate researcher with the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told state broadcaster CCTV. "In theory, if there is civilization in outer space, the radio signal it sends will be similar to the signal we can receive when a pulsar (spinning neutron star) is approaching us," Qian said.
Despite what the linked article says, FAST needs to undergo a long testing and commissioning period of about three years before it actually begins doing any science.
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
The true value to science, is to bring about an overall understanding of the universe, that in turn, unites all. If the development of scientific tools, such as this one, causes or brings about the idea of competition, then that's an indicator of a lack of scientific ability.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
....how do we know they're not actually using this supposed 'telescope' to signal the aliens so they can come here and vaporize our planet? Hmmm?
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Almost 3x area Arecibo.
1/16th the area Sq km array
Feel free to correct my rusty math[s]; it's been a while. :)
the telescope is primarily for radio astronomy, not SETI
Accept it is a waste of money to look for aliens and yes Im a space news fan. First off, Im not saying aliens do or do not exist only that there is bigger problem with finding them. First of lets ignore the fact the universe is insanely big thus that alone makes finding aliens a huge problem. No lets look at something everyone forgets to look at when talking about looking for aliens, and that is "time". Just like space time is fricken huge, there are approx 13.82 billion sol year time units on the table right now. So how does this effect finding aliens, well the question I will throw back is how long do you expect a space going empire to survive before it either destroys itself of collapses. I'm going with 150,000 years and to be honest even then I think I am over doing it. So lets say the first 6 billion years of our galaxy didn't have the right conditions for intelligent life forms so that leaves 13.82 - 6 = 7.82 billion years. So how many 150k space faring cycles can I fit into 6 billion years, the answer is 40,000. Thus in linear time periods there has been over 40,000 space going boom and crash space empire slots. So for humanity to find aliens we must be alive and looking during a period when an alien race is still exploring space and the chances of that are very very, very, small. In fact the odds are in favour that we exist in a period with no space going aliens in our region either because we are too soon or too late to enter the space exploring ball game.