back to article China starts building world's largest fully steerable radio telescope

A 120-meter diameter radio telescope is under construction in China and, once built, will be the world’s largest fully steerable device of its kind, according to the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS). The purpose of the telescope is to help scientists better understand planets and asteroids, according to CAS. The ‘scope will …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Good luck seeing past Elmo's swarm of Starlink satellites..

    1. simonlb Silver badge
      Trollface

      Well if it's a radio telescope, couldn't you get it to 'ping' each one of them with a solid dose of microwave radiation as it moves across the field of view and knock them out? Asking for a friend.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Yes, I think they could totally accidentally hook that up.

        What? If Google can totally accidentally mass-scan WiFi with Streetview and by sheer coincidence have a back end ready to accept that data, this ought not to be a stretch either.

        But way more fun :).

      2. CountCadaver Silver badge

        Makes me think of "radar gun" by the bottle rockets

        "Me and my partner go patrol car cruisin'

        On the parking lots at the shopping malls

        Scanning those dashes, those mirrors and visors

        The little detectors that ruin it all

        Johnny caught one on an '86 t-bird

        Pull up slow just as close as I can

        Milliwatt-seconds on maximum output

        We'll dust that puppy with one small blast of my

        Radar gun"

        Maybe china should build a veritable RF "death ray"

        Who needs a sat missiles with one of those?

  2. david 12 Silver badge

    Other use?

    the radio telescope's site in northeast China's Huadian, Jilin was chosen back in May, and preliminary work has already begun.

    Why wasn't it announced and boasted about back then? Enquiring minds would like to know. Is this a Chinese cultural difference? Is it an Intelligence device like the seismographs the CIA planted in Mongolia and Tibet in the 1950s, or a bit of American style "Military Budget" Pork Barrelling?

    1. Anonymous Coward Silver badge
      Alien

      Re: Other use?

      I don't know, but I would imagine that they didn't want to make a big thing about it until they had the foundation work done, just in case they discovered something that made it unfeasible. Delay announcement by a few months to avoid the risk of egg on face.

      1. X5-332960073452
        Joke

        Re: Other use?

        Is that Fried Rice or Foo Young?

    2. david 12 Silver badge

      Re: Other use?

      The Space Surveillance Telescope in Australia became fully operational last year. Originally a research project at White Sands Missile Range, then transitioned "from a scientific research system to a military asset ready to support ongoing operations."

      Note that although it is operated by the military, I have no idea if that is because the military wanted it, or because they got stuck with it. In the American system, "military" is a way of securing funding, which is why I wondered if China is the same.

  3. HCV

    I expect fully steerable radiotelescopes to be a major element of the next Mad Max movie. Please don't let me down.

    1. sanmigueelbeer Silver badge
      Joke

      It will be good enough to see the cracks of Uranus.

    2. Casca Silver badge

      I hope its on tracks

    3. Little Mouse

      "I expect..."

      Maybe Hammond, May & Clarkson could take it on a road-trip, and "accidentally" reverse it into the Great Wall, or some-such tomfoolery.

  4. Joe W Silver badge
    Pint

    Impressive

    I visited Effelsberg when I was young (several decades ago) and was suitably impressed. It is hard to imagine just how big this thing is. Unfortunately my career took a different turn, and I did astrophysics only as electives (and some lectures just as a guest, because back then nobody cared[1]).

    [1] There used to be a time when as a student you basically had the right to attend any lecture you wished - there were some constraints when it came to labs, those were off limits, but lectures? Just go, enjoy, learn something new (provided the lecture theatre was big enough and you were not a nuisance. I did a couple of philosophy classes, astrophysics, musical theory, lots of maths and stats without doing exams, just because it was either enjoyable, interesting or neccessary for my theses (and thus interesting and actually fun). I wish I was bloody filthy rich, so I could stop working and study some more, hang out with scientists again...

    1. BartyFartsLast Silver badge

      Re: Impressive

      Lottery win plans right there.

    2. neilg

      Re: Impressive

      Me too.

      I was bussed there in the 70's from Queen's School, Rheindahlen in the early 70's, green Army Bedford's.

      school project to gawp at tech. - worked, I still love it. We did Philip's at Eindhoven the next year.

      Bloody marvelous.

  5. vtcodger Silver badge

    Very Interesting

    I have no idea what it's good for, but it seems like a remarkable piece of engineering. Probably stunning to watch in action. I am curious why they didn't use a phased array -- a bunch of smaller antennae that do not themselves move, whose beam is steered electronically by altering the phase of the signals from/to the individual antennae. Not questioning their judgement, just curious about the reasoning.

    1. Sir Sham Cad

      Re: the reasoning.

      Biggest! More Big than theirs!

      1. ChrisElvidge Silver badge

        Re: the reasoning.

        Biggly big?

        1. Spherical Cow Silver badge

          Re: the reasoning.

          Biggerer.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Probably stunning to watch in action.

      I suspect not unless you do a timelapse of it.

      Still very impressive tech and I'd love to see it personally. Keeping something that big in the correct shape when moving in our gravitational field must be tricky.

    3. IvyKing

      Re: Very Interesting

      I suspect it was done for bragging rights. The improvement over a 100m dish is about 2dB.

      OTOH, a single big dish may have advantages when trying to capture an extremely weak signal or a very broad band signal.

    4. neilg

      Re: Very Interesting

      Mate, Jodrell Bank was put together withscaffolding poles, railway castoffs & bits of destroyers.

      Just marvel. :-)

      1. Stu J

        Re: Very Interesting

        UNESCO World Heritage site, and was used by the West to track Sputnik as it was the only thing capable at the time. Also used for Cold War early-detection capability, recieving images from the moon, and monitoring many early space missions.

        And it's bloody beautiful, I used to drive past it several times a week, and on a lightly misty/frosty winter's morning, in the early morning winter sun, it was an absolute sight to behold. It's up there with Concorde in terms of beautiful engineering IMO.

    5. jdiebdhidbsusbvwbsidnsoskebid Silver badge

      Re: Very Interesting

      A big phased array isn't necessarily simpler than a single large aperture. True, a phased array has no moving parts but each antenna element has to be separately wired up through its own RF channel with time delays, amplifiers, mixers etc. That's a lot of RF equipment to operate, maintain and buy in the first place.

  6. Aleph0
    Unhappy

    Xizang Autonomous Region

    Otherwise known as Tibet.

    Seems like the CCP is looking to erase the name of the place in addition to its ancestral culture? I traveled there just before Covid, and it was heartbreaking to see the number of heavily armed police troopers surveilling religious festivals, or how newly built infrastructure defaced pristine landscapes (to which the new radiotelescope will do no favours also, I suspect)...

  7. harrys Bronze badge

    sometimes wonder if the enviromental damage in china since the beginning of their capitalist beginnings has surpassed the enviromental damage of the two world wars combined

    be a hall of a study and if true would be a monumental "achievement" !!!!

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