The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has opened a new lab designed to complement the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in southwest China's Guizhou Province, according to a press release by the National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC).

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Known as KLFAST, the lab, located in Pingtang County, will focus on promoting the research and technological development of low frequency radio astronomy based on the telescope's findings. Further, it will promote international cooperation with the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), an international effort to build a multi radio telescope project with a total collecting area of one million square metres. If built, SKA would be 50 times more sensitive than any other radio instrument.

Currently, Chinese and Australian scientists are developing a 1.2-tonne beam receiver, or 19-beam receiver system, in order to make FAST more sensitive to radio signals. Additionally, the receivers would make it possible for the telescope to search a larger portion of the sky in order to search for hidden matter.

The system will be put into use in early June.

Since FAST began trial operations in September 2016, it has discovered 51 pulsar candidates, 11 of which have been confirmed as new pulsars by observatories in other countries.

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