“Perhaps in ten thousand years, the starry sky that humankind gazes upon will remain empty and silent,” writes Liu Cixin, China’s foremost philosopher of first contact and author of the Three Body Problem. “But perhaps tomorrow we’ll wake up and find an alien spaceship the size of the Moon parked in orbit.”
China’s FAST radio telescope, with a dish the size of 30 football fields, measuring 500 meters in diameter, dwarfing Puerto Rico’s 300-meter Arecibo Observatory, will launch its astronomers into the nation’s role as the new space superpower cinched with its epic landing of the Chang’e-4 Rover this week on the Moon’s far side. FAST could double the known pulsar tally of 2,000, says Peng Bo, FAST’s deputy manager and acting observatory director. It’s also ideal for mapping gas clouds between stars and for listening for signals from alien civilizations.