Telescope ‘retina’ pulls project into focus
Print Edition
A KEY component of what will be the world’s largest radio telescope when it is completed next September, its feed cabin, was successfully tested in southwest China’s Guizhou Province over the weekend.
“If FAST is an eye, then the feed cabin is its retina to gather all of radio signals from the universe,” Sun Caihong, a chief engineer with the FAST (Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope) program, told Xinhua news agency.
The 30-ton feed cabin was lifted into place above the telescope’s 500-meter diameter dish by steel ropes attached to six 168-meter towers around the perimeter.
Below, 4,450 reflectors, covering an area the size of 30 soccer fields, are still being assembled, with the first hoisted into place in August.
The feed cabin will move in tandem with the reflectors, whose faces will be adjusted by steel ropes according to the changing positions of celestial bodies.
When work is complete next September, the telescope will overtake Puerto Rico’s 300-meter diameter Arecibo Observatory to become the world’s largest.
It’s located in a natural karst basin and there are no towns and cities within a 5-kilometer radius, ensuring no radio disturbance.
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