Free Astronomy Magazine September-October 2016

8 After 5 years and a half of uninterrupted work and an expense of 160 million euros, it was completed on schedule a pharaonic en- gineering achievement for astronomical re- search, a radio telescope of one single disk with a diameter of half a kilometer. The ar- chitect of the enormous enterprise is China, which seems to prefer the policy of giant leaps instead of small steps, especially in scientific and technological domains. The goal is to align itself with superpowers en- gaged in knowledge and conquest of space. by Michele Ferrara INSTRUMENTS SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2016 World’s big about to op