China developing world's largest telescope array to study violent eruptions on Sun

China is developing the world's largest radio telescope array which will be directed toward the sun to study the violent solar eruptions. Named Daocheng Solar Radio Telescope (DSRT), the circular array is being built in the Sichuan province and is expected to be complete by 2022 end.

According to a report by the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the array will consist of 313 antennas (each with a diameter of 19.7 feet) equally spaced 3.14 kilometres apart with a 100-metre-long tower in the middle. 

(Illustration showing CMEs from the sun; Image: NASA)

Once ready, the DSRT will be used to study the coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which basically are eruptions of charged solar particles from the sun's upper atmosphere called the 'corona'. Since these CMEs are capable of destroying functional satellites and power grids, their study becomes important to be ready with defence measures.

SCMP reported that the under-construction telescope will work alongside the Mingantu interplanetary scintillation telescope. The second observatory is being assembled in inner Mongolia and would take indirect pictures of the sun to determine how solar winds scatter radio waves in deep space.

The DSRT, on the other hand, would take direct images in radio waves with a frequency range between 150 and 450 megahertz. According to Space.com, this development is part of the second phase of China's space environment monitoring network called the Chinese Meridian Project.

China's space plans

Studying the sun is part of China's next phase of its space plan which includes missions to find Earth-like exoplanets, study dark matter as well as the atmosphere of Venus. Recently, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) proposed 13 missions including the aforementioned ones, under the "New Horizons Program", and five to seven of them will be selected. These missions are expected to be selected by the end of this year and will cover China's ambitions till the year 2030. 

Besides these projects, China is also planning an asteroid sample return mission which will be launched to the near-Earth asteroid 1989 ML in the future.