Despite having the world’s largest radio telescope, FAST (Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope), China aims to build 5 more 500-meter radio telescope to form a huge array with the current one.
Wu Xiangping, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Science, made the announcement on 31st October during the 4th World Laureates Forum (世界顶尖科学家少年英才交流会) held in Shanghai.
FAST was put into work 2 years ago and officially opened for world since March 2021, he believes that it has great contributions in science & astronomy.
So far, FAST has been detecting 1652 times rapid radio burst and discovered 201 pulsars, surpassing the sum of all historically known records.
This expansion project “will lead the world for 50 years“, Wu said, “we can build more”, he added.