China begins construction of world’s largest Steerable Radio Telescope The world’s largest directional radio telescope

Beijing,

Construction of a 110-meter diameter directional radio telescope has recently begun in Gidai County, China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The project is led by the Xinjiang Astronomical Research Center.

Upon completion, it is said to be the world’s largest precision observing and fully directional radio telescope. Weighing around 6,000 tons, the telescope is said to be able to observe 85 percent of the stars in the sky at any given time.

The telescope, which operates between 150 MHz and 115 GHz, will answer a variety of probes including black holes, fast radio waves, nanohertz gravitational waves and the origin of life, Chinese scientists said.

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