CHINACHINA DAILY » CHINADAILY.COM.CN/NATION

4 Monday, November 23, 2015

BEIJING

Medical devicesafety promotedIn accordance with recentlyissued measures expected totake effect next year, Chinawill strengthen supervisionfor the safe use of medicaldevices, said the country’sdrug watchdog. Wang Shu­cai, deputy head of theDepartment of MedicalDevice Supervision with theChina Food and DrugAdministration, said illegalpurchases of medical instru­ments and lack of mainte­nance have seriouslyimpaired the quality oftreatment and patients’health.

HEBEI

Suspected serialrapist caughtThe police said on Sundaythey have caught a man sus­pected of raping six school­girls. The suspect, a 50­year­old man, allegedly forced thevictims at knifepoint. Aschoolgirl was raped in Sep­tember in Hebei and a policeinvestigation led to the sus­pect, surnamed Duan, andlinked him with another fiverapes in Beijing and Hebeithat have been reportedsince 2009. The case is stillunder investigation.

SHAANXI

Former lawmakerunder probeWu Yijian, a onetimewealthy man in Shaanxiprovince with suspected tiesto former senior politicaladviser Ling Jihua and hiswife Gu Liping, has beenremoved from his post asdeputy to the provincial Peo­ple’s Congress Nov 20, the­paper.cn reported. Wu, asthe chairman of the board ofdirectors at Ginwa Invest­ment Group, was investigat­ed for four months in Mayand resumed work in Sep­tember.

SHANDONG

Ming Dynastytomb foundArchaeologists have exca­vated a tomb dating back toabout 500 years with rarebrightly colored murals.Wang Zimeng with the pro­vincial Institute of Archae­ology said on Sunday thatthe tomb of the mid to lateMing Dynasty (1368­1644)was discovered in Zhangdi­an district in Zibo. Thetomb consists of three buri­al chambers. Exquisitemurals depicting people,dragons, a phoenix andflowers were painted in thetomb.

XINHUA— CHINA DAILY

Briefly

Large single­dishtelescopes offermany and differ­ent benefits totheir users.”Chris Salter, head of theRadio Astronomy Group at theArecibo Observatory

ASTRONOMY

Massive telescope’s 30­ton‘retina’ undergoes final testKey component putthrough its paces in dryrun; FAST to becomeworld’s largest eyefor scanning cosmos

By CHENG YINGQI in Beijingand YANG JUN in Guiyang

Scientists carried out thelast step in testing a key com­ponent of China’s giganticradio telescope on Saturday.After its scheduledcompletionin September, it will be thelargest such telescope in theworld.

A team successfully testedthe installation of the tele­scope’s “retina”, a mechanismweighing 30 metric tons andsuspended 140­160 metersabove the half­finished reflec­tor dish which will collect sig­nals from the universe.

The telescope, 500 metersin diameter and usuallyknown as FAST, is composedof 4,500 mostly triangularpanels with sides measuring 11meters that create a parabolicshape or hemisphere. Themotion of the panels alters thecollective shape of the anten­na, which is capable of reflect­ing radio signals from theuniverse to a focal point,where the receiver dome sits.

“So far, one of the mostimportant stepshasbeencom­

pleted. We will finish install­ing all the panels by June 2016,and strive to debug the wholesystem by the end of Septem­ber,” Li Di, a chief scientistfrom the National Astronomi­cal Observatories affiliatedwith the Chinese Academy ofSciences, told China Daily.

The working mechanism ofFAST, or Five­hundred­meterAperture Spherical Telescope,is similar to any televisionantenna on a roof, according toLi. But FAST is so much largerthat “if you fill it with wine,every one of the world’s seven

billion people could get a shareof about five bottles”, he said.

FAST is unique because4,350 panels have beendesigned to move up anddown, which enables thewhole hemisphere to rotate orto reshape.

“With a larger signal receiv­ing area and more flexibility,FAST will be able to scan twotimes more sky area than Are­cibo, with three to five timeshigher sensitivity,” Li said.

FAST was first proposed in1993 by Chinese astronomers,as one of several competing

concepts for the internationalSquare Kilometer Array project— a project by astronomersworldwide to build the nextgeneration radio observatory.

“Ultimately, exploring theunknown is the nature ofmankind, which is as visceralas feeding and clothing our­selves. It drives us to a greaterfuture,” he said.

Lister Staveley­Smith, anastronomer at the Universityof Western Australia, expectsnew discoveries from FAST,including previouslyunknown pulsars in the MilkyWay and even in other moredistant galaxies.

“The FAST’s sensitivity andresolution will allow anextremely comprehensivestudy of thousands of galaxiesin different environments inthe local universe,” he said inan e­mail exchange with Chi­na Daily.

Chris Salter, head of theRadio Astronomy Group atArecibo, said the 305­meterradio telescope and FAST areboth similar in many aspectsand complementary to eachother. “I have no doubt thatFAST counts as being a veryexciting development forradio astronomy, and I enthu­siastically await the commis­sioning of the new telescope,”he wrote in an e­mail.

Contact the writers at chengy­ingqi@chinadaily.com.cn

Engineers have finished two­thirds of the panels of the gigantic radio telescope in Guizhou province as of Saturday. JIANG DONG / CHINA DAILY

In quiet Guizhou,big dish can listenBy CHENG YINGQI

Mankindstartedwatchingthe sky with telescopes sinceGalileo Galilei some 400years ago.

Then, gradually, we foundout that besides visible light,there are more wavelengthsthat can be used to exploremessages coming from theuniverse — for example,radio waves.

However, a major obstaclekeeps us from hearing weakcosmic signals: Urbaniza­tion and the wide applica­tion of electronic devicesthat came with the advance­ment of technology.

That has driven scientistsfrom six countries, includingChina, Australia and Cana­da, to start searching for asite devoid of interferencefrom earthbound electro­magnetic signals.

“Mobile phones, televi­sions, lights — whereverthere are people, there iselectromagnetic interfer­ence,” said Li Di, a chief sci­entist from the NationalAstronomical Observatoriesaffiliated with the ChineseAcademy of Sciences.

Pingtang, a small, sparsely­populated county located inthe mountainous regions ofGuizhou province, wasthought to be a good candi­date to become home of theInternationalSquareKilome­ter Array, or SKA. As pro­posed in the 1990s, it wouldhave been the largest radiotelescope on Earth.

But the design of choicemoved toward a telescopeknown as a “synthesis array”,

in which signals from manysmall, widely­spaced dishesare combined to produceimages of very high resolu­tion. So it was decided by theSKA committee that the tele­scope would be built in eitherSouth Africa or Australia.

After the plan for Pingtangwas set aside, the Chinesegovernment invested in alarge telescope known asFAST at the site. It is expect­ed to be completed next year.

Chris Salter, head of theRadio Astronomy Group atthe Arecibo Observatory inPuerto Rico, said FAST hasits unique advantages.

“Large single­dish tele­scopes offer many and differ­ent benefits to their users,”Salter said. “A single dish haswonderful flexibility of use,needs only a single receiversystem at any given frequency— rather than a separatereceiver system being neededfor each telescope in an array— can operate as a planetaryradar to imageandstudybod­ies within our solar system.”

WEATHER

Region blanketed by heavy snowBy HU YONGQIhuyongqi@chinadaily.com.cn

Key expressways wereclosed and flights were can­celed over safety concerns onSunday, as a wide area ofnorthern China was hit by asnowstorm that disruptedtransportation.

At the same time, theNational Meteorological Cen­ter renewed a blue alert, thelowest level ina four­tierwarn­ing system, for snowstorms inthe north of the country.

Snowstorms were expectedto hit Inner Mongolia autono­mous region and northernprovinces of Shanxi and Hebeias well as Beijing and Tianjinmunicipalities on Monday,

with some areas likely to seesnowfall of 12 millimeters.

Schools in mountainousareas in Beijing were due to beclosed on Monday due to last­ing snowfall, according tolocal education authorities.

Traffic management author­ities and police patrolled high­ways ready to rescue potentialvictims of traffic accidents. Sixexpressways that connect Bei­jing to other parts of Chinawere temporarily closed toprevent traffic accidents dueto theheavy snow, said the Bei­jing Traffic ManagementBureau. In Tianjin, all high­ways were shut down until thesnow stopped falling.

On Thursday, the center hadissued a warning on the com­

ing blizzard and reminded res­idents in northern China of thesharp decline in temperatureand possible traffic difficulties.On Saturday, the traffic wasless than the previous week­endasmanypeopleheededthewarnings and stayed home.

“Such a heavy snowfall hasnot occurred often before, andthe pre­warning helped toalert people of possible dan­gers,” said Sun Jun, chief fore­caster at the center.

Before the snow, the BeijingMunicipal Commission ofTransport organized a team of4,100 rescuers to deal withpotential accidents. The com­mission also prepared 1,500machines and 24,000 metrictons of de­icing liquid and salt

to melt the snow.Airports canceled flights, as

the airplanes would not be ableto take off and land safely onslippery runways. The BeijingCapital International Airportalonecanceledabout150flightsby Sunday afternoon, accord­

ing to the airport’s statement.More than 20 flights weredelayed at Tianjin Binhai Inter­national Airport.

Thousands of visitorsswarmed into the ForbiddenCity to experience the old pal­ace covered in snow.

FAST has already

brought well­

known overseas­

trained scientists

back to China. The

prospect of acquir­

ing telescope time

on the world’s larg­

est radio telescope

is very alluring.Lister Staveley­Smith, astronomer, Univer­sity of Western Australia

China is already

expanding its

homegrown radio­

astronomical talent,

and an ever­in­

creasing number of

young Chinese

astronomers are

making names for

themselves.Chris Salter, head of theRadio Astronomy Group atArecibo Observatory

What they say

A man in his 70s, surnamed Wang, takes a cold shower after a win­try swim in Shichahai Lake in Beijing on Sunday.WEI XIAOHAO / CHINA DAILY

Soccer: Better system‘still needed in China’

“China has talented play­ers who are good at learning,but they need to be trainedand managed under a moreprofessional system, whichhas still to be set up in thenation,” Scolari said.

Four days before Evergran­de’s victory, China drew 0­0with the Hong Kong SpecialAdministrative Region in aqualifying match for the 2018World Cup, leaving it withonly a slim chance of makingfurther progress.

It would be China’s fourthfailed World Cup qualifyingattempt since the only time itreached the finals in 2002.

Such a setback would cast

FROM PAGE 1 a shadow over the nationalplan approved in March toprofessionalize the game’smanagement.

The association also said itwill stage a congress in Bei­jing next month to work onmeasures to delink itself fromgovernment administrationand to rebuild its manage­ment structure.

Wei Jixiang, vice­chair­man of the association, said:“All the anger and criticismfrom fans and the media areunderstandable. But wemust be patient, as it takestime to overhaul an ill­man­aged system.”

Qiu Quanlin in Guangzhoucontributed to this story.

With a larger signal receiving area and moreflexibility, FAST will be able to scan two

times more sky area than Arecibo.”Li Di, chief scientist from the National Astronomical Observatories

Arecibo has a fixed spherical

curvature.

FAST500m

ARECIBO305m

ARECIBO FAST

Comparing telescopic titans

FAST can reshape into a

parabolic surface.

Since it was constructed in 1963 in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, this telescope had held the record as the world’s largest telescope.

ARECIBO

FASTIt’s designed as a cable-net

structure capable

of forming a parabolic mirror.

It will be completed in 2016.

Listens for radio waves into a

single line

40°The distance it can

rotate.

Source: Skyandtelescope.com, universetoday.com, URSI CHINA DAILY