The full name of FAST is the 500-meter spherical radio telescope, which is the largest and most sensitive radio telescope in the world at present, and its comprehensive performance is more than ten times that of Arecibo, the largest radio telescope in the United States.
Telescopes are mainly divided into optical telescopes and radio telescopes, which receive electromagnetic waves with different wavelengths. Hubble Space Telescope is a typical optical telescope, which mainly receives visible light from celestial bodies in the universe, similar to what the naked eye sees. And a radio telescope like "Eye of the Sky" can be likened to an ear, which is listening to the signals in the universe, because radio signals can't be observed by the naked eye.
The eye of the sky (FAST) has the following main scientific objectives:
1, to increase the observation ability of neutral hydrogen in the universe, which can reach billions of light years, and help scientists better understand the early universe;
2. Discover more pulsars and establish a more complete pulsar timing array. In the future, we can use these pulsars for interstellar navigation. After all, for radio telescopes, pulsars are like bright lighthouses on the sea at night.
3. Cooperate with relevant international organizations to establish a very long baseline interferometry network to obtain the ultra-fine structure of cosmic celestial bodies;
4. With the advantage of the largest single aperture, Tian Yan can better conduct microwave patrols and detect weak signals in space;
5. Participate in the search for extraterrestrial civilization and put the search for aliens on the agenda;
6. To enhance China's deep space communication capability, it is necessary not only to explore four distant planets, but also to fly out of the solar system to explore those outer planets that are closer to the solar system. Eye of the sky can assist communication during this detection process.
Among these scientific tasks, we should be most interested in exploring extraterrestrial civilization. On April 28th this year, China FAST officially launched SETI. With the participation of Tianyan, the future SETI project is enough for us to look forward to, and we have reason to believe that the first batch of aliens will be discovered by Tianyan.
The main way to search for extraterrestrial civilization through radio telescopes is to collect as many chaotic signals scattered in space as possible. After Tianyan began to search for extraterrestrial civilization, it also found a large number of radio signals. The next key and most complicated step is the statistical analysis of these chaotic radio signals.
Hawking opposed human beings' active search for and contact with aliens before his death, mainly because he was worried that human beings would be destroyed by "evil" aliens. However, at present, the way to find extraterrestrial civilization mainly relies on radio telescopes to passively receive signals and not transmit signals, so there is no problem that Hawking once worried about.
According to the data of official website, Chinese Academy of Sciences, over 5,200 machine hours have been observed by the celestial eye in the past year, which is stable and reliable, more than twice the original design expectation. So far, more than 240 pulsars have been discovered, and more than 40 high-level papers have been published through celestial eye observation data. Recently, a team of Chinese scientists first discovered the special properties of fast radio burst FRB 18030 1, which has rich polarization characteristics.
This discovery can help scientists better understand the origin of rapid radio bursts, and the research results have been published in the scientific magazine Nature. Previously, it was found that repeated rapid radio bursts caused widespread concern, and many people also paid attention to them. Because of the particularity of repetitive rapid radio bursts, many people doubt whether this is caused by alien civilization.
The study of fast radio bursts can help scientists solve many mysteries of the universe, and the road of Ad Astra may be better in the future. With the progress of the task of finding extraterrestrial intelligence, the future may bring surprises.
Text/science black hole, image source network intrusion.