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The panoramic photo taken on August 28, 2019 shows China’s 500-meter Aperture Spherical (FAST) spherical radio telescope under maintenance in southwest China’s Guizhou province. (Xinhua / Ou Dongqu)
China announced Wednesday that its five-hundred-meter spherical telescope (FAST), the world’s largest and most powerful radio telescope, has discovered more than 240 pulsars and is expected to detect the primordial gravitational wave of the Big Bang.
FAST will also be able to help extend China’s deep space exploration to the fringes of the solar system, enabling the country to meet its key strategic needs.
According to the Science and Technology Daily on Thursday, the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) said at a press conference on Wednesday that since its acceptance inspection in January, FAST has been operating stably and reliably.
FAST has observed and served more than 5,200 hours in the past year, nearly double its intended target, NAOC said.
FAST has discovered more than 240 pulsars, and more than 40 high-level articles based on telescope data have been published.
NAOC noted that FAST’s research results on fast radio bursts were published in the international scientific journal “Nature” early Thursday morning.
As its performance improved, FAST’s scientific potential gradually emerged, according to Science and Technology Daily.
“The sensitivity of FAST is more than 2.5 times that of the second largest single aperture radio telescope in the world. This is the first time that a Chinese-built radio telescope has outperformed the world on the important sensitivity indicator, which is significant for promoting Chinese astronomy to achieve breakthroughs, “said Jiang Peng, chief engineer and deputy executive director of the FAST Operation and Development Center.
Jiang noted that the very high sensitivity allows to detect gravitational waves in nanohertz and gravitational wave in the primordial moment of the Big Bang, providing data support for the study of the physical process of the original Big Bang time.
Additionally, FAST has the ability to extend China’s deep space exploration and communication capabilities to the fringes of the solar system, which will enable the country to meet its key strategic needs, the media report said.
In February, nearly 100 scientists began using and processing FAST science data.
“In April, the telescope time allocation committee began soliciting free application projects from the home astronomy community. More than 170 applications were received, with a total application time of approximately 5,500 hours. Just 30 percent of the applications. 1,500 hours actually approved can be supported, which shows that the FAST telescope observation time competition is quite fierce, ”said Chang Jin, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and director of NAOC.
FAST was completed in 2016. Its reflective surface is equivalent in size to about 30 standard soccer fields, the report says.
Chang said FAST’s new design concept created a new model for building giant telescopes, overcoming the engineering limitations of a traditional fully mobile radio telescope with an aperture of about 100 meters.
FAST’s huge reflector can actively adjust its shape in real time according to the position of celestial bodies. Its 30-tonne cabin moves at an altitude of 140 meters and a range of 206 meters, all with control accuracy to the millimeter.
FAST also faces unprecedented technical challenges due to its huge engineering volume, ultra-high precision requirements and special working methods.
As a result, the engineering team carried out technical research to overcome many technical problems in the fields of mechanics, measurement, control, materials and large-scale structures.
The engineering team has developed a steel cable with very high fatigue strength, which is 2.5 times higher than the corresponding national and international standards. It also adopted an innovative two-stage adjustment mechanism consisting of the world’s largest flexible parallel robot and a 6-degree-of-freedom rigid parallel robot to achieve high-precision positioning.
Global Times
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