中国正在寻找外星生命？

中国正在建造全球最大的射电望远镜，目的之一是搜寻外星生命的迹象。

据中国官方媒体新华社报道，这个名为FAST的500米口径球面射电望远镜，将超过美国的同类型望远镜。波多黎各的阿雷西博天文台望远镜直径仅300米。

中国军方主导的这一太空项目从2011年3月开始建造FAST，投资约为2亿美元，预计将在今年晚些时候完工。

据新华社报道，完工之后，这个宏大的工程项目能够监测到数百亿光年之外的无线电信号以及可能存在的生命迹象。

巨大的望远镜肯定要占用大量的空间，因此，中国在2月16日宣布，将搬迁西南省份贵州省的9000名居民。

新华社报道了搬迁计划，并指出为了“保护”望远镜，所有居民必须全部迁出。搬迁居民可以获得相当于1838美元的补偿金。

中国最近频频进行居民搬迁工程。例如，为了筹备2008年奥运会，北京搬迁了成千上万的居民。此外，为了建造大型基础设施项目，如湖北省的三峡大坝，中国政府还曾实施了三峡移民工程。（财富中文网）

译者：刘进龙/汪皓

China is building what will be the largest radio telescope in the world in a hunt for signs of alien life.

Measuring some 500-meters, the Aperture Spherical Telescope, known as FAST, will well surpass a similar model in the United States, according to the Chinese state news agency Xinhua. Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory is only 300 meters in diameter.

The country’s military-led space program began construction of FAST in March 2011 with an investment equal to $200 million, and it should be done later this year.

Once completed, the massive engineering project will be able to detect radio signals—and maybe signs of life—from as far as tens of billions of light years away, according to Xinhua reports.

A telescope that big certainly takes up a lot of space, so China announced Tuesday that it’s relocating 9,000 residents in the southwest province of Guizhou to make way.

Xinhua reported on the planned displacement, noting that the residents will be uprooted for the “protection” of the telescope. The residents who evacuate will receive a subsidy equal to $1,838.

China has quite a recent history of displacing its own people. It famously uprooted hundreds of thousands of residents in Beijing in preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games. It’s also forced the evacuation of its citizens to make room for giant infrastructure projects like the Three Gorges dam in the Hubei province and to—seemingly—rescue people from areas of entrenched poverty.