Chinese FAST Telescope to Surpass Arecibo

When it comes to understand what’s going on in deep space, whether asteroids and Kuiper belt objects or pulsars and galaxies, it’s all about size. The bigger the telescope, the more it can detect. Since its completion in 1963, the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico has been the world’s largest single aperture telescope with a diameter of 305 m. China is looking to break that long held record with the upcoming FAST telescope. Construction on FAST began in 2011; the telescope is expected to be completed in 2016 with a diameter of 500 m.