China to open giant telescope to international scientists

PINGTANG: Nestled among the mountains in southwest China, the world’s largest radio telescope signals Beijing’s ambitions as a world center for scientific research.

The 500m Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), the only significant instrument of its kind after the collapse of another telescope in Puerto Rico this month, is about to open its doors for use by foreign astronomers, hoping to attract to the best scientific talents in the world.

The world’s second-largest radio telescope, at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, was destroyed when its 900-ton suspended receiving platform came loose and plunged 140 meters into the satellite dish below.

Wang Qiming, chief inspector for FAST’s development and operations center, told AFP during a rare visit from foreign press last week that he had visited Arecibo.

“We took a lot of inspiration from its structure, which we gradually improved to build our telescope.”

The Chinese facility in Pingtang, Guizhou province, is up to three times more sensitive than the US-owned one, and is surrounded by a 5 km “radio silence” zone where mobile phones and computers are not allowed.

Work on the FAST began in 2011 and became fully operational in January of this year, working primarily to capture radio signals emitted by celestial bodies, particularly pulsars, rapidly rotating dead stars.

The giant 500-meter satellite dish is arguably the largest in the world, spanning 30 soccer fields, and cost 1.1 billion yuan ($ 175 million) to build, as well as displacing thousands of villagers to make room for it.

China has been rapidly improving its scientific credentials to be less reliant on foreign technology.

The most populous country in the world so far has only won one Nobel Prize in science, awarded in 2015 to chemist Tu Youyou.

But in the past two decades, China has built the world’s largest high-speed rail network, completed its Beidou geolocation system, a competitor to American GPS, and is now in the process of bringing lunar samples to Earth.

China is investing billions in its military management space program and has published a plan to become a world leader in artificial intelligence, space, clean energy and robotics by 2035.

The data collected by FAST should allow a better understanding of the origins of the universe and aid in the search for extraterrestrial life.

SEARCH FOR TALENT

Closer to home, China has said it will accept applications in 2021 from foreign scientists who want to take measurements.

“Our scientific committee aims to make FAST increasingly open to the international community,” said Wang.

Sun Jinghai, an engineering manager at the site, predicted that there would be a lot of acceptance.

John Dickey, a professor of physics at the University of Tasmania in Australia, said the results so far had been impressive.

“China is certainly a global center for scientific research, on the same level as North America or Western Europe,” he said.

“The research community is as advanced, as creative, and as well-organized as in any advanced nation in the world.”

Improvements in scientific innovation have been rapid, said Denis Simon, an expert on Chinese science policy, adding that “China was seen as a lagging innovation” only a few years ago.

“Increasingly, discretion and intellectual freedom have been granted to the scientific and engineering community to explore new ideas and take greater risks in the research environment,” he said.

“The risk aversion culture that was once prevalent has given way to a more entrepreneurial culture.”

This has included educational reforms for new generations of scientists and engineers, he said.

One sign of the shift in China’s mindset is that since 2018, foreign scientists have been able to lead state-funded projects.

“In many ways, the competition between China and the US is about a race for talent, and this race promises to build momentum as competition between the two countries intensifies,” he added.