{"id":486356,"date":"2026-06-06T16:10:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T16:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/486356\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T16:10:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T16:10:10","slug":"how-china-is-working-to-turn-saishiteng-mountain-into-the-worlds-largest-astronomy-base","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/486356\/","title":{"rendered":"How China is working to turn Saishiteng Mountain into the world\u2019s largest astronomy base"},"content":{"rendered":"

Construction on the Tibetan plateau<\/a> of some of the Earth\u2019s most powerful optical telescopes is putting China on track to house the world\u2019s biggest astronomy base by the mid-2030s, according to project scientists.Deng Licai, lead scientist for site planning at the National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC) in Beijing, said the telescopes at Saishiteng Mountain<\/a> in northwestern Qinghai province would stretch between 6.5 metres (21.3 feet) and 14.5 metres across, and partner with dozens of smaller instruments.\u201cTheir collective light-gathering power is expected to surpass [that of the telescopes] on Hawaii\u2019s Mauna Kea<\/a> peak,\u201d he said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Mauna Kea has long been regarded as the crown jewel of ground-based astronomical observation, home to the twin 10-metre Keck telescopes, the 8.2-metre Subaru and the 8.1-metre Gemini North.<\/p>\n

Groundwork, mirror polishing and instrument development were already under way for the 2.5 billion yuan (US$369.03 million), 14.5-metre Large Optical Telescope (LOT) and the 1.5 billion yuan, 6.5-metre MUltiplexed Survey Telescope (MUST), Deng said.<\/p>\n

\"TelescopeTelescope domes dot the summit of Saishiteng Mountain in Qinghai province, a site that China aims to develop into the world\u2019s largest astronomy base by the mid-2030s. Photo: HandoutThe LOT is government-funded and led by the NAOC, while MUST is backed mainly by private capital and led by a team from Tsinghua University<\/a>. Both aim to achieve \u201cfirst light\u201d \u2013 or practical use \u2013 by 2030.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Construction on the Tibetan plateau of some of the Earth\u2019s most powerful optical telescopes is putting China on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[155690,2102,1758,31281,114,209115,1813,7137,61,60,209114,202036,209119,142523,209116,209118,82,247,209117],"class_list":["post-486356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-atacama-desert","tag-beijing","tag-big-bang","tag-chile","tag-china","tag-deng-licai","tag-europe","tag-hawaii","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-large-optical-telescope","tag-mauna-kea","tag-multiplexed-survey-telescope","tag-national-astronomical-observatories-of-china","tag-qinghai-province","tag-saishiteng-mountain","tag-science","tag-space","tag-tibetan-plateau"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}