Beijing: China's world's largest radio telescope which will be used for exploring space and will also help in finding extraterrestrial life was fitted into the centre of the big dish today, state media said.
This largest Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical Telescope, or FAST having a reflector of the size of 30 football fields, is poised for a trial-run.
Scientists will now start debugging and trials of the telescope, Zheng Xiaonian, deputy head of the National Astronomical Observation under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which built the telescope, told the official Xinhua news agency.
About 300 people, including builders, experts, science fiction enthusiasts and reporters, witnessed the installation at a karst valley in Pingtang County in the southwestern province of Guizhou.
The telescope, took about five years to build, and is expected to begin operations in September. It is aimed at observing deep space and is known as one of most visible project of China's plans to transform into high-tech nation focussing on research in advanced science and technology moving away from cheap manufacturing.
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 said.
The radio telescope will be the global leader for the next 10 to 20 years, he said.
Upon completion, the telescope will dwarf Puerto Rico's Arecibo Observatory, which is 300 meters in diameter.
It will also be 10 times more sensitive than the steerable 100-meter telescope near Bonn, Germany, he said.
The work on USD 180 million FAST project started in 2011.
(With Agency input)
