FAST - World'sLargest Radio Telescope Built in China

China has built world’s largest radio telescope nicknamed Tianyan (Heavenly Eye” or “The Eye of Heaven) or the five-hundred-metre aperture spherical radio telescope (FAST). 
•    It has started its operation and is part of China’s drive to become a science powerhouse. 
•    It is located in the Dawodang depression (vast natural crater), a natural basin in Pingtang County in the Guizhou Province, Southwest China. 
•    With its opening, the intensive testing phase of the telescope will begin. 
•    It will take nearly three years to calibrate the instruments of telescope to become fully operational. 
•    The facility is part of China’s drive to become a science powerhouse. It is an ambitious project of the National Astronomical Observatories of China. 
•    It is made up of 4,450 panels and has reflector as large as 30 football pitches. It has 500 meters diameter, giving it more sensitivity. 
•    It will be also used to study stellar radio emissions, gravitational waves and potentially signals from extraterrestrial civilizations. China’s best supercomputers the SkyEye-1 will be used to process the massive amounts of data supplied by FAST.