China urged by scientists to create biggest radar system to save lives threatened by asteroid strike

Chinese scientists and military researchers outline plan for several radio dishes as ‘responsibility to mankind’

Relying on the US to tell of a potential catastrophe is no longer an option, say researchers

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Chinese scientists says Beijing needs a radar system to help detect potentially threatening asteroids. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 6:00pm, 7 Feb 2021Updated: 11:12pm, 7 Feb 2021

China should consider the construction of the “largest radar system on planet” to monitor asteroids that may threaten human civilisation, according to a team of researchers from military and government research institutes.

The proposed system would use four or five 35-metre (115-foot) diameter radio dishes in Kashgar, Xinjiang, to send powerful beams into space. Returned signals would be picked up by large antennas across the Chinese mainland in a number of cities, including Jiamusi, Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Kunming.

The radar detection range would be expected to exceed 0.1 astronomical unit – or a tenth of the mean distance between the Earth and the sun.

The project “will fulfil the responsibility of our nation to the mankind,” said the team led by Li Haitao with the People’s Liberation Army’s Beijing Institute of Tracking and Telecommunications Technology in a paper published in the journal Scientia Sinica Informationis on Tuesday.

The United States is the only country operating a planetary radar system at present. But Li and colleagues said China was now capable of building a system that was equal to, or could even outperform, the American facilities.

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