The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST), nicknamed Tianyan (天眼, lit. “Sky’s/Heaven’s Eye”), is a radio telescope located in the Dawodang depression (大窝凼洼地), a natural basin in Pingtang County, Guizhou, southwest China. FAST has a 500 m (1,600 ft) diameter dish constructed in a natural depression in the landscape. It is the world’s largest filled-aperture radio telescope and the second-largest single-dish aperture, after the sparsely-filled RATAN-600 in Russia.
It has a novel design, using an active surface made of 4,500 panels to form a moving parabola metal panels in real time. The cabin containing the feed antenna, suspended on cables above the dish, can move automatically by using winches to steer the instrument to receive signals from different directions. It observes at wavelengths of 10 cm to 4.3 m.
The primary driving force behind the project was Nan Rendong, a researcher with the Chinese National Astronomical Observatory, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He held the positions of chief scientist and chief engineer of the project.
The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST), nicknamed Tianyan (天眼, lit. “Sky’s/Heaven’s Eye”), is a radio telescope located in the Dawodang depression (大窝凼洼地), a natural basin in Pingtang County, Guizhou, southwest China. FAST has a 500 m (1,600 ft) diameter dish constructed in a natural depression in the landscape. It is the world’s largest filled-aperture radio telescope and the second-largest single-dish aperture, after the sparsely-filled RATAN-600 in Russia.
It has a novel design, using an active surface made of 4,500 panels to form a moving parabola metal panels in real time. The cabin containing the feed antenna, suspended on cables above the dish, can move automatically by using winches to steer the instrument to receive signals from different directions. It observes at wavelengths of 10 cm to 4.3 m.
The primary driving force behind the project was Nan Rendong, a researcher with the Chinese National Astronomical Observatory, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He held the positions of chief scientist and chief engineer of the project.
