The world’s largest radio telescope has begun operating in south-western China, a project Beijing says will help humanity search for alien life. The five-hundred-metre aperture spherical radio telescope (acronym: Fast), nestled between hills in the mountainous region of Guizhou, began working about noon on Sunday, the official news agency, Xinhua, reported. Built at a cost of 1.2bn yuan (£138m), the telescope dwarfs the Arecibo observatory in Puerto Rico to become the world’s largest single-dish radio telescope, with twice the sensitivity and a reflector as large as 30 football pitches. Experts have been hunting for alien intelligence for six decades, pointing radio telescopes at stars in the hope of discovering signals from other civilisations, but have not yet found any evidence. Facebook Twitter Pinterest The last panel of the Fast telescope is installed in July.

Source: The Guardian September 25, 2016 11:35 UTC