The republic of China has developed a five-hundred-meter-Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) which is set to start operations this year as the largest single-aperture radio telescope on the planet, and will let researchers continue to search for life in the galaxy.
FAST will be around 650 feet larger than the current record holder, the 1000-foot wide Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.
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But the move came at a cost with the Chinese government asking more than 9,000 people to move from their homes to ensure that the giant radio telescope will be able to function properly.
The Chinese government is relocating people living within 3 miles of the telescope in a bid to prevent electromagnetic interference with the telescope. Even small electrical objects like cell phones can create interference, preventing the telescope from detecting the very faint radio waves that it’s looking for.
This is not the first time China has been forced to relocate a large number of people; to build the world’s largest hydroelectric plant, the Three Gorges Dam, China relocated more than one million people.
There has been a recent push to move 250 million people into newly-constructed towns and cities in an effort to urbanise.