Free Astronomy Magazine September-October 2016

INSTRUMENTS A bove, the start of work on the place that hostes FAST, by excavation at the huge structure that supports the disk. On the side, three phases of the work ad- vancement. [NAOC, Xinhua] and is a candidate to become the best instrument in many sectors of the astronomical research: from the weakest pulsars to neutral hydrogen clouds, from black holes to amino acids scattered in the cosmos, from the very first stars that appeared after the Big Bang to possible radio sig- nals produced by extraterres- trial civilizations. FAST is an entirely Chinese work, which only partly adopts technological solutions al- ready tested in other coun-