9,110 residents of China’s southwestern province, Guizhou, were relocated, due to the opening of the world’s largest radio telescope at the end of this year. The RMB1.2 billion telescope was constructed in the hope that it would advance China’s search for extraterrestrial life. 
Guizhou residents overlook the complex.
On Tuesday, Xinhua announced that the Guizhou residents will be evacuated from their homes. Each person will received RMB12,000 in compensation from the Chinese’s government’s eco-migration bureau. People living within 5km of the project will all be relocated, due to the “sound electromagnetic wave environment”.
The FAST (Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope) project began in 2011 and is anticipated to be completed by September of this year. The telescope is approximately 200 metres larger in diameter than the huge telescope complex in Arecibo, Puerto Rico.
For Beijing, the telescope is an example of China’s increasing technological prowess. According to Chinese state media, FAST is constructed of over 4,000 triangular-shaped moveable panels, which will be used to reflect radio signals. Supposedly, the telescope will be able to detect sensitive white noise in the universe. This high-level sensitivity will help Chinese scientists detect intelligent life outside Earth and “explore the origins of the universe."
The telescope’s location, a remote location in Guizhou’s karst mountains, is apparently the ideal spot for detecting alien messages.
This is not the first time that the Chinese government has relocated residents to for infrastructure purposes. In recent years, the Party has often relocated and displaced individuals to construct hydro-electric dams.
[Images via The Guardian]
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