Radio telescope FAST, the largest in the world

2009/04/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Astronomia

They build a 500-metre diameter radio telescope in the Chinese province of Guizhou, the FAST telescope. The name of the telescope indicates the diameter, Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope. And it also expresses its form: they have used the form of a karst valley with half sphere shape to build the telescope antenna, a structure of mobile plates that allows it to adopt the form of a paraboloid. All these characteristics make the FAST telescope much more sensitive than the Arecibo radio telescope.