Jiang Peng, executive deputy director and chief engineer of the FAST Operation and Development Center of the National Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, introduced the operation and open sharing of FAST. Photo by Sun Zifa, a reporter from China News Service
BEIJING, Jan. 6 (Xinhua) -- The 500-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) of the National Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, known as the "Eye of Heaven of China," has approved 27 applications for international observation from 14 countries outside China since it was officially opened to global astronomers at the end of March 2021.
In the early morning of January 6, Beijing time, another heavy astronomical research achievement paper of "China's Heavenly Eye" was published online in the international academic journal "Nature" with a cover article. The Chinese Academy of Sciences held the first press conference of 2022 in Beijing on January 5, introducing the high-quality open operation of the big country heavy weapon "China Tianyan" and a series of important scientific research progress, and revealing the application for international observation.
The National Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said that in the past two years since the "China Tianyan" passed the national acceptance on January 11, 2020, the station has made every effort to organize the high-quality open operation of the "China Tianyan", and has established a scientific committee, a time allocation committee and a user committee for the first time, planning scientific directions, selecting major projects, formulating data opening policies, allocating observation time, etc., and collecting and selecting "drift scanning multi-scientific targets while surveying the sky", "searching for fast radio bursts and multi-band observation" and "silver road surface pulsar sky survey" Five priority major projects, such as "M31 neutral hydrogen imaging and pulsar search" and "China pulsar timing array", have achieved a series of important results.
On March 31, 2021, "China Sky Eye" was officially opened to the world for sharing, and solicited observation applications from astronomers around the world, highlighting the concept of cooperation between Chinese scientists and the international scientific community. A total of 7216 hours of observation applications were received from different countries, and 27 international observation applications from 14 countries (excluding China) were finally approved, and scientific observations were launched in August 2021.
Infographic: China Sky Eye (FAST) in Pingtang, Guizhou. Photo by Sun Zifa, a reporter from China News Service
Academician Zhou Qi, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said at the press conference that it is very happy to see that the "Chinese Sky Eye" is running more stable, the efficiency is further improving, and scientific research achievements such as fast radio bursts, pulsars, and neutral hydrogen universes continue to emerge. This series of work and achievements shows that the "Chinese Tianyan" has become a sharp tool for viewing the sky in the field of medium and low frequency radio astronomy, and has entered a new stage of "more results" and "good results".
It is understood that the "China Sky Eye" is a major national scientific and technological infrastructure built, debugged, operated and managed by the National Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and is also the largest and most sensitive single-aperture radio telescope in the world. So far, about 500 pulsars have been discovered, making it the most efficient astronomical device in the world since its inception.
At present, the operation efficiency and quality of "China Tianyan" have been continuously improved, and the annual observation time has exceeded 5300 hours, which has far exceeded the work efficiency expected by international counterparts and played an important supporting role in its scientific output. Based on the obvious advantages of ultra-high sensitivity, "China Tianyan" will produce scientific achievements to deepen human understanding of the universe in the future in the direction of the origin and physical mechanism of fast radio bursts, the study of neutral hydrogen universe, pulsar search and physical research, pulsar timing and low-frequency gravitational wave detection. (End)