The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) nicknamed Tianyan (天眼, lit. "Heavenly Eye" or "The Eye of Heaven"), is a radio telescope located in the Dawodang depression (大窝凼洼地), a natural basin in Pingtang County, Guizhou Province, southwest China.
It is the world's largest filled aperture (single dish) radio telescope
The basic design of FAST is similar to the Arecibo Observatory
radio telescope. Both are fixed primary reflectors installed in natural
hollows, made of perforated aluminum panels with a movable receiver
suspended above.
The FAST dish is significantly deeper, contributing to a wider field of view. Although 64% larger in diameter, FAST's radius of curvature is 300 m (980 ft), barely larger than Arecibo's 270 m (870 ft), so it forms a 113° arc (vs. 70° for Arecibo.) Although Arecibo's full aperture of 305 m (1,000 ft) can be used when observing objects at the zenith, the effective aperture for more typical inclined observations is 221 m (725 ft).
China is also planning a particle accelerator seven times more powerful than CERN's LHC.