Description
Context: China has published a plan to become by 2035 a world leader in artificial intelligence, space, clean energy and robotics.
- The Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) — the only significant instrument of its kind after the collapse of another telescope in Puerto Rico this month — is about to open its doors for foreign astronomers to use, hoping to attract the world’s top scientific talent.
- The world’s second-largest radio telescope, at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, was destroyed when its suspended 900-tonne receiver platform came loose and plunged 140 metres (450 feet) onto the radio dish below.
- Work on the FAST began in 2011 working mainly to capture the radio signals emitted by celestial bodies, in particular pulsars — rapidly rotating dead stars.
- China has been rapidly boosting its scientific credentials to become less reliant on foreign technology.
- China has built the largest high-speed train network in the world, finalised its Beidou geolocation system — a competitor of the American GPS — and is now in the process of bringing lunar samples back to Earth.
- China is pouring billions into its military-run space programme and has published a plan to become by 2035 a world leader in artificial intelligence, space, clean energy and robotics.
- The data being collected by FAST allow for a better understanding of the origins of the universe — and aid in the search for alien life.
https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/china-to-open-giant-telescope-to-international-scientists/article33335679.ece?homepage=true
