The world is flooded with conspiracy theorists and theories. But these aren’t the only people interested in secrets that swarm the heavens above. Scientists and Physicists have seemingly spent years trying to decipher the enigmas of the universe – suppose
The world is flooded with conspiracy theorists and theories. But these aren’t the only people interested in secrets that swarm the heavens above. Scientists and Physicists have seemingly spent years trying to decipher the enigmas of the universe – supposedly though in vain.
Existence of life beyond our planet is an inevitable fact. If we’re here, it would be no mistake to believe that the universe has a bigger purpose to serve a bigger reason. Yet the technology to achieve this is beyond us humans as we are more accepting of our limitations than capabilities to uncover reality as a whole.
Most humans, except the rare few. One who was a hidden gem of a scientist – In China.
Professor Nan Rendong, the popular astronomer in China and researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), died from illness in Beijing on the night of the 22nd of September, at the age of 72.
Nan was the founder and major contributor to China’s Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), the world’s largest radio telescope located in southwestern China’s Guizhou Province. The telescope, launched about a year ago, is as large as 30 football fields and capable of detecting intelligent extraterrestrial life in remote galaxies.
FAST celebrated its first anniversary on Monday, but its founding father was not there to enjoy the moment. Nan died just 10 days before the celebration. He underwent surgery after being diagnosed with the disease two years ago.
Reading more into his life and works it was very apparent that Professor Nan was a quiet man with the loudest of minds. He spared no efforts in his research and made outstanding contributions to the development of Chinese astronomy. The astronomer was known to often look up at the starlit sky in the dead of night, pondering life’s big questions that only a few of us would so often consider. Who are we? Where are we from? Are we alone in the universe?
This curiosity as well as his patriotism prompted Nan to bid farewell to the good salary and world-class research environment he had while working as a visiting professor at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. Nan had been in charge of FAST since 1994, leading the research team to work around the clock, pouring all his energy into the project.
In the stunning landscape of jagged limestone hills in southwestern China, engineers put the finishing touches on a grand astronomy facility in September of 2016: FAST nestles in a natural depression that gathers radio signals from the cosmos. This world’s largest radio telescope catalogs a combination of pulsars; probes gravitational waves, dark matter, and fast radio bursts; and listens for transmissions from alien civilizations. The dish will aid efforts to map the distribution of hydrogen throughout the Milky Way and other galaxies, with changing states of hydrogen being an indicator of exoplanets that could potentially sustain life.
Professor Nan aimed to build the largest super-sensitive “ear” of Earth to seek distant sounds in the universe and decode cosmic messages, and he surpassed his excellence not only by completing the project, but by also fulfilling his ambition.
The project, once viewed by many as an impossible mission, completed its main structure installation. It is capable of enlarging and searching for sun-like stars, using technology five times more powerful than what was previously available. It can receive electromagnetic signals from 10 billion light-years away, and perhaps bring the search for extraterrestrial life closer to what would be an astonishing conclusion.
Professor Nan’s Legacy
Peng Bo, head of China’s National Astronomical Observation, has said “FAST’s potential to discover an alien civilization will be five to ten times that of current equipment, as it can see farther and darker planets.”
According to Douglas Vakoch, president of METI International, an organisation that attempts to make contact with alien life “If such a civilization were just 300 years ahead of humans–the tiniest fleck on an evolutionary timescale–in terms of technology development, their communication abilities would be so advanced as to be almost incomprehensible to us”
Due to the limitations of current radio technology, Vakoch observed, any radio signals from alien civilizations detected by the dish would have to be strong and deliberately sent with contact in mind, rather than randomly fired out from radio or TV equivalents. “We’d only be able to find the sort of signals that FAST will be looking for: narrow band signals, something that would have a lot of energy put into a carrier,” he said. “An interstellar beacon saying: We are here.”
“Our civilization has only been evolving for tens of thousands of years,” said Dick Manchester, a radio astronomer at Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. “Other civilizations could have had billions of years to evolve. It’s virtually certain that any other civilization we detect would be enormously more advanced than we are. Our history in terms of stellar evolution is absolutely tiny.”
Therefore, It is not just FAST’s sheer size—it has more than twice the collecting area of the runner-up, the 305-meter dish in Arecibo, Puerto Rico.
FAST is also breaking new ground in radio astronomy with a design that pulls a section of the spherical dish into a gradually moving paraboloid to aim at and track cosmic objects as Earth rotates, bringing the benefits of a tilting, turning antenna to a fixed dish. This innovation “is absolutely unique, nobody has ever done this before,” says Dick Manchester, a radio astronomer at Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Sydney.
The Future of FAST
As the leading engineer, professor Nan drafted the plan, monitored the building process and overcame many technical troubles for the telescope…He owns the giant machine,” said his assistant Jiang Peng. “Usually, one person can only master one thing. But Nan knows almost everything about the telescope,” Jiang added. “He even knows visual art. He designed the logo for FAST.”
Now that he’s gone, the future of FAST can only be trusted in the hands of an equally passionate individual. China is hence, searching for a uniquely qualified radio astronomer to run the newly constructed FAST telescope in the southern province.
A salary of about $1.2 million will be offered to the talented scientist. The position has been advertised since May, but thus far no qualified applicants have applied. This is explained in part by the stringent requirements that accompany the post, which include a minimum of 20 years of experience in the field, a professorship or equally senior role in a world-class university or research institute, and a previous leading role with extensive managerial experience on a large-scale radio telescope project. According to sources, there are only around 40 or so astronomers worldwide who meet those qualifications. Radio astronomy is relatively small compared to other astronomy disciplines.
In the first two or three years in operation, the telescope will undergo further adjustments, and Chinese scientists will use it for early-stage research before it is opened to international scientists, Peng Bo, director of the NAO Radio Astronomy Technology Laboratory, was quoted saying.
There are a lot of lessons to learn from a person like Professor Nan. An individual can overcome all obstacles with a never-give-up-attitude. Like Nan, they must be willing to stick to a task they’re passionate about, and never lose focus through maintaining an ongoing sense of “curiosity,” we all have it, but we all don’t use it like we should.
But most importantly, what beats all forms of trials and errors in the path to success is a key phrase Professor Nan Rendong swore by In life, until his very last breath – that is: “Refuse to be average.”
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