Peking University wants to build The largest optical telescope In Asia and to bridge the gap in astronomy capabilities with the rest of the world, the project aims to Create a preliminary telescope with an opening of 19.7 feet (6 m) by 2024; The mirror will be expanded to 26.2 feet (8 meters) by 2030.
The project, called Expanding Aperture Telescope (EAST) in English, is led by Peking University.
A statement from Peking University said the telescope would “significantly improve China’s observational capabilities in optical astronomy,” according to Space.
The acronym EAST is appropriate because the facility will become the first world-class optical telescope in the Eastern Hemisphere, with today’s major facilities in the Western Hemisphere at sites around Mauna Kea in Hawaii, the Atacama in Chile, and the Canary Islands at off the coast of northwest Africa.
The first phase of the EAST project involves the construction of a mirror composed of 18 hexagonal mirror segments, similar to that of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, with a mirror diameter of approximately 19.7 feet, also similar to that of the JWST extension.
But unlike the newest space telescope, which orbits about 1 million miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth at the Sun-Earth’s second Lagrangian point, EAST will be built on Saishiteng Mountain near the city of Lenghu in the province of Qinghai on the Tibetan Plateau, at an elevation of about 13,800 feet (13,800 ft). 4200 AD).
The second phase will add a ring of 18 more hexagons around the mirror, expanding it to more than 26.2 feet in diameter by 2030.
Peking University estimates the cost of the project to be between 500 and 600 million yuan ($69-84 million). The Qinghai News reported last month that work on the project is proceeding in an orderly fashion.
Peking University notes that astronomy plays an important role in technology and social development, and the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to scientists who discovered the black hole at the center of the Milky Way using powerful optical telescopes among including the two Keck telescopes beyond Mauna Kea and the Very Large Telescope (VLT). ) in the Atacama Desert in Chile.
