World's Largest Radio Telescope to Look for Aliens read more at here www.spinonews.com/index.php/item/1004-world-s-largest-radio-telescope-to-look-for-aliens

The world's largest radio telescope began operating in southwestern China Sunday, a project which Beijing says will help humanity search for alien life.

China has put the finishing touches on the world's biggest radio telescope, whose 1,650-foot-wide dish will scan the heavens for signs of intelligent alien life, among other tasks.

After launching Tiangong-2, China's second space lab, the country also activated the world's largest radio telescope to start the search for alien life.

 

Construction of FAST began in 2011, and local officials vowed in February to relocate nearly 10,000 people living within five kilometres to create a better environment for monitoring.

Project team members will soon begin testing and debugging FAST, after which Chinese scientists will use it for "early-stage research," Xinhua reported. But the instrument will be available to researchers around the world when that phase is over — likely two to three years from now.

The Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), nestled between hills in the mountainous region of Guizhou, began working around noon, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Built at a cost of 1.2 billion yuan ($180 million), the telescope dwarfs the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico as the world’s largest radio telescope, with a reflector as large as 30 football fields, it said.