Significance and value of 500-meter spherical radio telescope

As the largest and most sensitive radio telescope in the world, the complete success of the "Eye of the Sky" project means that China's major scientific and technological infrastructure has been further improved, and human beings have a deeper perspective on the exploration of the unknown universe. The success of "Eye of the Sky" embodies China's wisdom, China's technology and China's strength, and shows China's responsibility.

For the world's scientific and technological circles, "Eye of the Sky" provides the research tools needed to explore the universe. "Major breakthrough, instruments first", from cosmic stars to elementary particles, human scientific discovery and technological innovation are increasingly inseparable from "tall" scientific research instruments. Astronomical circles generally believe that less than 1% in the universe is a luminous substance that human beings can see. Scientists often improve their ability to observe the universe through radio telescopes. In this respect, the sensitivity of "Eye of the Sky" is more than 2.5 times that of the second largest single-aperture radio telescope in the world, and its high sensitivity is likely to help scientists make breakthroughs in frontier directions such as low-frequency gravitational wave detection, the origin of fast radio bursts, and interstellar molecules.

Significance and value of 500-meter spherical radio telescope

The meaning of "500-meter spherical radio telescope (FAST)"

First, don't realize economic benefits or look for strange celestial bodies in the short term.

The main goal of 1 and FAST is not to achieve economic benefits in the short term, but to scan the microwave radiation in the background of the universe and observe and study distant signals and substances in the universe.

For example, the gas, microwave laser and pulsar in the middle of the universe can realize the most basic understanding of the composition and evolution history of the universe and satisfy human exploration of the unknown universe.

2.FAST will be possible to search for more exotic celestial bodies to observe pulsars (dense residues after the supernova explosion of massive stars), explore the origin and evolution of the universe, the evolution of galaxies and the Milky Way, and even search for interstellar communication signals to explore extraterrestrial civilization.

Millisecond pulsars with stable pulse signals are screened out from pulsars, which is expected to be used in the navigation field of spacecraft in the future.

(strange celestial body that feeds on blood)

Second, it is helpful for data storage and calculation in the field of information science.

1, FAST is the "first sight in the world" in radio astronomy, and the demand for data storage and calculation is also "astronomical figures".

Astronomy, as one of the first scientific fields to experience information explosion, has always been famous for its large amount of data and complex data types.

2. In the short term, the computing performance of FAST should be at least 200 trillion times per second, and the storage capacity should be above 10PB (100TB is equivalent to 1000TB).

With the passage of time and the deepening of scientific tasks, the demand for computing performance and storage capacity will increase explosively, and the amount of data and calculation will be "amazing".

(amazing science, massive data)

The Value of "500-meter Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST)" to Ordinary People

It is helpful to solve the various crises facing mankind at present.

Compared with ordinary people's livelihood projects, scientific instruments like FAST telescope are too far away from ordinary people.

Many people will not see their current income and think it is a "useless waste of money".

Actually, it is not like this!

▼ "Hertz discovered the working principle of radar when confirming the existence of electromagnetic waves, which affected the process of World War II; The GPS we are using now can be traced back to 1957, the first artificial satellite launched by the Soviet Union. Before Tu Youyou stood on the Nobel podium, we didn't even know where the research started more than 40 years ago would go, but the discovery of artemisinin saved millions of lives around the world, especially in developing countries. "

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FAST research involves many high-tech fields, such as antenna manufacturing, high-precision positioning and measurement, high-quality radio receivers, sensor networks and intelligent information processing. Therefore, in the long run, FAST is likely to help solve the various crises that mankind is currently facing.

1970, Zambian nun Mary Jucunda wrote a letter to Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger (Deputy Director of Science Department of Marshall Space Navigation Center of NASA), in which she asked: There are so many children who can't eat on the earth at present, how can they be willing to spend billions of dollars on projects far away from Mars?

Every year, about 1000 new technologies developed by space projects are applied to daily life. These technologies have created better kitchen utensils and farm equipment, better sewing machines and radios, better ships and planes, more accurate weather forecast and storm warning, better communication facilities, better medical equipment and even better daily necessities.

You might ask?

Why not design the life support system of astronauts' lunar module first, instead of creating remote physical sign monitoring equipment for heart patients first? The answer is simple: when solving engineering problems, important technological breakthroughs are often not directly obtained step by step, but come from challenging goals that can stimulate strong innovative spirit, ignite imagination and firm action, and integrate all resources.

Space exploration not only provides a mirror for human beings to examine themselves, but also brings us brand-new technology, brand-new challenges and enterprising spirit, as well as an optimistic and confident attitude in the face of severe practical problems.

I believe that what mankind has learned from the universe fully confirms albert schweitzer's famous saying: "I look at the future with anxiety, but I am still full of good hopes."

meaning

For the world engineering community, "Eye of the Sky" enriches the innovative practice of super engineering. The reflecting surface consisting of 4,450 reflecting units, the feed cabin controlled by six steel cables weighs 30 tons, and the measuring angle is accurate to 8 arcseconds on the 500-meter scale, which improves the satellite data receiving capacity 100 times ... The extraordinary things of "Eye of the Sky" abound. There are no good things in the world. "Eye of the Sky", a super project attracting worldwide attention, has condensed the wisdom of the people of China and soaked the hard work of the people of China. It is Socialism with Chinese characteristics's institutional advantage of "concentrating on great things" that makes the major scientific and technological infrastructure needed for high-quality development come to a successful conclusion. It can be said that the success of "Eye of the Sky" has once again contributed China's development experience to the world.

For the future of the world, the "eye of the sky" has become a footnote for the construction of human destiny. Facing the vast universe, the unknown world and the potential of science and technology, human beings are all the same in interests, responsibilities and destiny. "Eye of the Sky" has been shouldering a global mission since its birth. In the short nine years from construction to national acceptance, "Eye of the Sky" produced more than 300 papers and found 146 pulsar candidates, which played an important role in international very long baseline interferometry ... The great project of "Eye of the Sky" is another precious gift contributed by Chinese civilization to the world.

"The people are the creators of history and the people are real heroes." Behind the "Eye of the Sky" is the great creative spirit, great struggle spirit, great unity spirit and great dream spirit cultivated, inherited and developed by the people of China in the long-term struggle. It is this national spirit that has made "Eye of the Sky" and injected strength into the development of China and the progress of human civilization.