The Xinjiang Qitai 110m Radio Telescope (QTT) is a planned
radio telescope
A radio telescope is a specialized antenna and radio receiver used to detect radio waves from astronomical radio sources in the sky. Radio telescopes are the main observing instrument used in radio astronomy, which studies the radio frequency ...
to be built in
Qitai County in
Xinjiang
Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...
,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
. Upon completion, which is scheduled for 2023, it will be the world's largest fully steerable single-dish radio telescope. It is intended to operate at 300 MHz to 117 GHz. The construction of the antenna project is under the leadership of the
Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory
Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory (XAO; ) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences was known as Ürümqi Astronomical Observatory before it was renamed in January 2011.
The current research at XAO spans many fields of astronomy. It consists of radio ...
of the
Chinese Academy of Sciences
The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); ), known by Academia Sinica in English until the 1980s, is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for natural sciences. It has historical origins in the Academia Sinica during the Republ ...
.
The fully steerable dish of the QTT will allow it to observe 75% of the stars in the sky at any given time. The QTT and the
Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), also located in China, can both observe frequencies in the "
water hole" that has traditionally been favored by scientists engaged in the
Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a collective term for scientific searches for intelligent extraterrestrial life, for example, monitoring electromagnetic radiation for signs of transmissions from civilizations on other pl ...
(
SETI
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a collective term for scientific searches for intelligent extraterrestrial life, for example, monitoring electromagnetic radiation for signs of transmissions from civilizations on other p ...
), meaning that each observatory could provide follow-up observations of putative signals from extraterrestrials detected in this quiet part of the radio spectrum at the other observatory.
The radio telescope site selection team considered 48 candidate locations throughout Xinjiang. The chosen site for the facility is in the foothills of the
Tian Shan
The Tian Shan,, , otk, 𐰴𐰣 𐱅𐰭𐰼𐰃, , tr, Tanrı Dağı, mn, Тэнгэр уул, , ug, تەڭرىتاغ, , , kk, Тәңіртауы / Алатау, , , ky, Теңир-Тоо / Ала-Тоо, , , uz, Tyan-Shan / Tangritog‘ ...
mountains, near Shihezi village,
Banjiegou Town
A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world.
Origin and use
The word "town" shares an ori ...
, about 46 km (straight-line distance) south-south-east of the Qitai county seat (Qitai Town). The mountain ridges surrounding the site are supposed to provide some protection from
electromagnetic noise. The authorities propose designating a radio quiet zone (a 10 km by 15 km rectangle, much smaller than the
United States National Radio Quiet Zone
The National Radio Quiet Zone (NRQZ) is a large area of land in the United States designated as a radio quiet zone, in which radio transmissions are restricted by law to facilitate scientific research and the gathering of military intelligence. ...
) around the future facility.
[
]
Goals
The main goals of the QTT include imaging of pulsar
A pulsar (from ''pulsating radio source'') is a highly magnetized rotating neutron star that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation out of its magnetic poles. This radiation can be observed only when a beam of emission is pointing toward Ea ...
s, stellar formation, and the large-scale radio structure of the universe.
Similar fully steerable telescopes
*Green Bank Telescope
The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in Green Bank, West Virginia, US is the world's largest fully steerable radio telescope, surpassing the Effelsberg 100-m Radio Telescope in Germany. The Green Bank site was part of the National Radio ...
, the current largest fully steerable parabolic dish wideband radio telescope, of similar capabilities and 110m x 100m elliptical aperture
*Effelsberg 100-m Radio Telescope
The Effelsberg 100-m Radio Telescope is a radio telescope in the Ahr Hills (part of the Eifel) in Bad Münstereifel, Germany. For 29 years the Effelsberg Radio Telescope was the largest fully steerable radio telescope on Earth, surpassing the Lo ...
*The three NASA Deep Space Network
The NASA Deep Space Network (DSN) is a worldwide Telecommunications network, network of American spacecraft communication ground segment facilities, located in the United States (California), Spain (Madrid), and Australia (Canberra), that suppo ...
stations each sport a fully steerable 70m dish telescope, and the counterpart Soviet Deep Space Network The Soviet Deep Space Network (or Russian Deep Space Network) was a network of large antennas and communication facilities that supports interplanetary spacecraft missions, and radio and radar astronomy observations for the exploration of the Solar ...
likewise uses the comparable 70m aperture RT-70
There are three radio telescopes designated RT-70, all in countries that were once part of the former Soviet Union, all with similar specifications: 70m dishes and an operating range of 5–300 GHz. The Yevpatoria telescope has also been used ...
line
See also
* List of radio telescopes
This is a list of radio telescopes – over one hundred – that are or have been used for radio astronomy. The list includes both single dishes and interferometric arrays. The list is sorted by region, then by name; unnamed telescopes are in r ...
References
{{Portal bar, China, Astronomy, Stars, Spaceflight, Outer space, Solar System, Education, Science
Chinese telescopes
Radio telescopes
Buildings and structures in Xinjiang
Proposed buildings and structures in China
Proposed telescopes
Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture