Aussie scientists to assist China in developing world's largest single-dish telescope

Australian scientists have teamed up with China's National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) to develop crucial technology in the world's largest single-dish telescope.

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) revealed on Thursday that it would offer a significant contribution to the Five hundred meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) project, with its scientists set to build the telescope's 19-beam receiver.

The receiver is a key component to the telescope and will be built and designed in Australia before being shipped to China for use in the FAST project.

The Chinese telescope is set to dwarf the current largest single-dish telescope in Puerto Rico, and will be the most sensitive ever built, allowing the NAOC to detect the faintest radio signals from deep in the universe.

CSIRO chief executive Larry Marshall said the FAST project was a great example of Australian technology being delivered on the world stage.

"Global collaboration is an integral part of CSIRO's Strategy 2020, as it maps out our desire to deliver science, technology and innovation to new customers and markets, while also delivering benefit back to Australia," Marshall said in a statement released on Thursday.

"This is a really exciting project and builds on 40 years of CSIRO collaboration with Chinese industry and research organizations."

According to the CSIRO's Acting Director of Astronomy and Space Science, Douglas Bock, most radio telescopes use receivers that can only scan one piece of sky at a time, but the CSIRO's receivers use many separate, simultaneous beams, making it more practical for FAST to search a larger portion of the sky for "faint and hidden galaxies".

"The powerful receiver we've created for FAST is the result of our long history developing cutting-edge astronomy technology to receive and amplify radio waves from space," Bock said.

"Extending our technology and collaboration to China and working on what will become the world's largest radio telescope really cements our position as a global R&D leader in this space."

Professor Rendong Nan from NAOC said the receivers would help assist their astronomers to expand their understanding of the universe.

"FAST will make it possible for us to look for a range of extremely interesting and exotic objects, like detecting thousands of new pulsars in our galaxy, and possibly the first radio pulsar in other galaxies," he said.