Wanted: Researchers for China’s mega telescope to interpret signals from across the universe
- Hidden in a remote mountain location is the world’s largest radio telescope which has already discovered 53 stars
- The problem is finding enough astronomers to analyse the data
When China built the world’s largest telescope, officials said it would make the country the global leader in radio astronomy. The problem is, they can’t find enough people to run it.
Officials are struggling to find researchers to analyse the signals the US$180 million FAST radio telescope in southwest China’s mountainous Guizhou province is expected to detect from sources across the universe when it officially launches sometime in the first half of 2019.
The plan had been to hire another two dozen researchers after the launch, according to job postings late last year on the website of the instrument’s owner, National Astronomical Observatories.
But Zhang Shuxin, director of FAST, told the state-run newspaper Science and Technology Daily on Sunday that “so far we have only hired half of the researchers we need”.
The job posting was republished on the National Astronomical Observatories website on Monday.
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The hiring scramble highlights the challenges faced by China’s scientific research community in attracting and keeping talent.