China is lending its largest ear to the search for alien life in a new deal with Russian billionaire Yuri Milner's $100 million Breakthrough Listen initiative.
The National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC) is partnering with Breakthrough in a collaboration that will allow the project to utilize its Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) telescope, Space.com reported.
FAST "will be one of the most powerful instruments to search for the potential intelligent life beyond Earth," Jun Yan, director general of NAOC, said in a statement, calling FAST the world's largest single instrument.
"The FAST telescope is a remarkable instrument with unprecedented power," Pete Worden, executive director of the Breakthrough Initiatives program, said in a statement. "We are delighted to be collaborating with NAOC."
According to Popular Science, FAST and NOAC join many other powerful telescopes and organizations already in Breakthrough's arsenal, such as the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia; the Parkes Observatory in New South Wales, Australia; and the Automated Planet Finder at Lick Observatory in California.
The partnership is a powerful example of nations transcending governmental boundaries, says Andrew Siemion, who is involved with Breakthrough Listen and director of Berkeley's SETI Research Center.
"In the past, there have been various restrictions imposed on publicly funded scientific collaboration between certain nations, which is unfortunate," he told Popular Science via email. "I hope that this collaboration demonstrates that profound scientific questions can transcend national boundaries and offer an opportunity for our entire planet to come together to seek answers."
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