Mankind has been studying the skies for eons and that star-gazing effort is soon getting a major boost thanks to the world's largest radio telescope, which is being built by China.

Photo taken on July 27, 2015 shows the assembly site of the single-aperture spherical telescope "FAST" in Qiannan of southwest China's Guizhou Province. Assembly of the telescope, with a dish the size of 30 football fields and located deep in the mountains of Guizhou, has got underway.

"Fast" is what scientists have named the space-viewing wonder that is officially known as the 500-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope. Technicians have been begun to assemble the telescope that consists of 4,400 and 50 reflector panels and is the size of 30 soccer fields. But size is not the telescope's only advantage.

"Having a more sensitive telescope, we can receive weaker and more distant radio messages in a more effective way," said Xu Renxin, professor of Department of Astronomy of Peking University.

The dish of the huge telescope is designed to act like ears to detect natural sounds from outer space instead of viewing the images through ordinary optical telescopes. That means that a radio signal tens of billions of light years away could possibly be detected by the Fast.

That capability will give China the ability to explore space from the moon all the way to the outer edge of the solar system when the telescope is completed next year. It will also help explore the origins of the universe and even search for intelligent life beyond the galaxy.

"The telescope involves bidirectional communications. The larger the telescope is, the more possibility that we could search for signals sent from outer space. Or we may send a signal to aliens through the 500-meters telescope. Its large capacity will help to transmit the signal to a more remote area," Xu said.

The sensitive telescope is being assembled in a natural, bowl-shaped valley in southwest China's Guizhou province. The area is relatively isolated and will allow the Fast telescope to accurately detect any signals and study space from a much wider perspective.

The massive radio telescope will cost approximately 1.2 billion yuan, making it the largest astronomy project in the history of China.

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