(Yicai Global) May 31 -- The Chinese Academy of Sciences has established a new astronomy laboratory dedicated to the recently completed Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope, the world' largest single-aperture radio telescope, located in Pingtang in the country's southwestern Guizhou Province.

The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope Lab will gather resources at home and abroad to make achievements in the field of low-frequency radio astronomy, Science and Technology Daily reported project lead Peng Bo as saying, adding that the facility can make significant contributions to astronomical research.

Specifically, the FAST lab will carry out research on radio astronomical observation methods and related applications, as well as low-frequency radio astronomy sciences such as pulsars and neutral hydrogen.

In addition to operating FAST, the lab will participate in the establishment of the Square Kilometre Array, a large multi-radio telescope project expected to be built in Australia and South Africa. It will also build 100-meter fully steerable radio telescopes and develop high-performance radio astronomy receivers.

The facility is expected to commission the new FAST telescope receiver in early June, thereby increasing the telescope's synoptic survey capabilities five to six-fold, Peng added.

FAST has recently discovered millisecond pulsars while the US Ahreb telescope has failed in three observations at the same location, said Liu Zhijie, deputy director of the FAST Early Science Data Center. The achievement not only demonstrates the FAST's high sensitivity but also reflects the fact that FAST's computing capabilities have reached a world-class level.

Editor: William Clegg