Hunt, Katie. "China's Giant Space Telescope Starts Search for Alien Life." CNN. Cable News Network, 21 Sept. 2016. Web. 12 Oct. 2016.
The article "China's Giant Space Telescope Starts Search for Alien Life" by Katie Hunt is about the new telescope in China that will begin to search for life on other planets. The world's largest telescope has been completed and will be able to look further and faster than past telescopes. Compared to the second largest telescope which is in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, the Chinese telescope is almost twice as large. The scientists chose the location they did in China because of the egg-cup shaped valley which is the perfectly size and the surrounding mountains provide a shield against radio frequency interference. The telescope is expected to be able to locate the origins of the universe by mapping the distribution of hydrogen. Scientists also believe it will be able to detect how galaxies have evolved. However, many people are more interested in the expected goal of searching for extraterrestrial activity. The new telescope, FAST, will be capable of detecting exoplanets like these in ways that other telescopes cannot. China's Longer term goals include putting a man on the moon and sending a robotic probe to Mars which the telescope could help track some of these missions. This new information that the telescope is planning on providing is important to life on earth. There has been recent discovery of three life-friendly planets outside our solar system has rekindled discussion of whether intelligent life is unique to Earth. FAST may be able to shed light onto this ongoing discussion on if human life is unique to Earth.
This article was able to provided many goals that scientists have for FAST. It was able to lay out China's intentions on how they plan to use the new telescope. They also explained the reason for choosing the location that they did which I felt was very interesting. I think that the article could have gone into depth more about how the size of the telescope allowed scientists to see further and faster. I would also like to know if the telescope will be used by other researchers other than just the Chinese.
Charlotte Prior
ReplyDeleteHunt, Katie. "China's Giant Space Telescope Starts Search for Alien Life." CNN. Cable News Network, 21 Sept. 2016. Web. 12 Oct. 2016.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/21/health/china-fast-telescope-search-for-aliens/index.html
I read Kiki Shinsato’s review on the article "China's Giant Space Telescope Starts Search for Alien Life." The article is about the new biggest telescope in the world, that was just built by China. It is twice as large as the previous telescope. Kiki did a good job of summarising the article and explaining the new additions to the scope. She also did a good job of explaining what the goals and future of this telescope, like how it is expected to detect how galaxies evolve. Her writing was simple and had a good flow, it was easy to read and interesting.
There are some things that Kiki could work on. She could have added more to the part of her review that is the importance of her article. I also would have liked her to go into how the telescope works or how it plans to find new life. Except for these couple things Kiki did a good job in this review.
I did not know about this new telescope before reading this review, and I found it very interesting. If the telescope is as powerful and accurate as the article says then there is a lot of opportunity for new discoveries in the future.