To make up for China’s lag in the astronomical industry, Peking University has developed the largest optical telescope in Asia. The project is called the Expanding Aperture Segmented Telescope (EAST), according to Space.com.

By 2024, a telescope with an aperture of 6 meters will be built. It will consist of 18 hexagonal mirror segments that resemble NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope mirror. By 2030, its mirror will be expanded to 8 meters with a ring of 18 hexagonal segments.

EAST will be the first world-class optical telescope in the eastern hemisphere. Now the world’s main telescopes are located in the western hemisphere: Hawaii (Mauna Kea Observatory), Chile (Atacama Observatory) and the Canary Islands.

The telescope will be installed on Mount Saishiten, near the city of Langu (Qinghai province), which is on the Tibetan plateau at an altitude of about 4200 meters.

The project is scheduled to be completed by 2030. Its cost will be 500-600 million yuan.

Earlier, we reported that a prototype of SpaceX’s space home designed for Mars and the Moon was presented in Switzerland.

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