snipped the rest of it as its not relevant to the FAST telescope.China completes world's biggest telescope, eyes hunt for alien life
China has finished building the world's biggest radio telescope, which it will use to explore space and hunt for extraterrestrial life, state media says.
The 500-metre Aperture Spherical Telescope, or FAST, is the size of 30 soccer fields and has been hewn out of a mountain in the poor south-western province of Guizhou.
Scientists will now start debugging and trials of the telescope, Zheng Xiaonian, deputy head of the National Astronomical Observation under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which built the telescope, told the official Xinhua news agency.
"The project has the potential to search for more strange objects to better understand the origin of the universe and boost the global hunt for extraterrestrial life," the report paraphrased Mr Zheng as saying.
The 1.2-billion yuan ($240 million) radio telescope will be a global leader for the next one to two decades, Mr Zheng added.
The telescope, which has taken about five years to build, is expected to begin operations in September.
Advancing China's space program is a priority for Beijing, with President Xi Jinping calling for the country to establish itself as a space power.
Note the Russian RATAN 600 is larger, but its a different type of radio telescope in the sense that while its also circular shape, the inside of the circle isn't filled with panels like FAST.
