China is constructing the largest radio telescope

Chinese scientists are constructing the world's biggest radio telescope. This means that picking up weak messages from outer space that could be linked to intelligent life will be easier. The telescope will be called as the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope, or FAST. It is expected to be completed in 2016.

Once finished, the reflector dish of the telescope will be 500 meters in diameter, replacing Puerto Rico's Arecibo Observatory which is only 300 meters in diameter, as the largest. The telescope's dish is sunken into a natural bowl-shaped valley in China's Guizhou province by a series of strong pillars and cables, allowing operators to move it and listen in to noises coming from different parts of space. The wider the dish, the more effective the telescope becomes at picking up weak messages from outer space.

When it is finished it will potentially be able to detect radio signals and potentially, signs of life from planets orbiting a million stars and solar systems.

"A radio telescope is like a sensitive ear, listening to tell meaningful radio messages from white noise in the universe." Nan Rendong, the chief scientist of the FAST project said.

FAST's unprecedented precision will allow astronomers to survey the Milky Way and other galaxies and detect faint pulsars, and the array might also work as a powerful ground station for future space missions.

"It will help us to search for intelligent life outside of the galaxy and explore the origins of the universe," Wu Xiangping, director-general of the Chinese Astronomical Society said.

The remoteness of the location, meaning minimal interference from other radio signals and the region's topography make it an ideal site for a telescope of this kind.

The development of the telescope will allow Chinese scientists to have their own first-hand data and equipment, rather than having to rely on information supplied by foreign space telescopes.