China’s FAST radio telescope marks 10 years since construction completion — ECNS

In Pingtang County, Guizhou Province, China, the FAST radio telescope has marked 10 years since the completion of its construction. During this time, it has become one of the world’s important astronomical facilities for observations, ECNS reports.

Meeting of scientists in Pingtang

From September 22 to 24, more than 200 experts and scientists from over 40 Chinese universities and research institutions gathered at the telescope site. Participants discussed FAST’s operational results and further plans for the project’s development.

FAST is a spherical radio telescope with an aperture of 500 meters. It was created as a major scientific infrastructure facility under China’s 11th Five-Year Plan for 2006–2010. According to the outlet, the telescope was commissioned ahead of schedule, while the project’s implementation achieved breakthroughs in a number of key technologies.

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Scientific results and the next stage

Over the past decade, FAST has produced important scientific results in the study of pulsars, galaxies with neutral hydrogen, fast radio bursts, and gravitational waves. Based on the telescope’s observations, 13 scientific papers have been published in the international journals Science and Nature.

FAST-related results were included twice in Science’s list of the ten biggest scientific breakthroughs and once in Nature’s top ten scientific discoveries. The telescope team plans to continue the project’s second phase to expand its observational capabilities.