China has put the finishing touches on the world’s biggest radio telescope, whose 1,650-foot-wide dish will scan the heavens for signs of intelligent alien life, among other tasks.
On Sunday (July 3), technicians installed the last of the 4,450 panels that make up the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope’s (FAST) giant dish.
Project team members will soon begin testing and debugging FAST, after which Chinese scientists will use it for “early-stage research,” Xinhua reported. But the instrument will be available to researchers around the world when that phase is over — likely two to three years from now
