The largest telescope in the world (China's FAST)

The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope
(FAST; Chinese: 五百米口径球面射电望远镜), nicknamed Tianyan (天眼, lit. "Heavenly Eye") is a radio telescope located in the Dawodang depression (大窝凼洼地), in Pingtang County, Guizhou Province, southwest China. (中國貴州省平塘縣克度鎮)
 It consists of a fixed 500 m (1,600 ft) diameter dish constructed in a natural depression in the landscape. It is the world's largest filled-aperture radio telescope.
The 500 meter-diameter telescope, which will dwarf the 300 meter-diameter Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico furthers China's technological clout.
The telescope is made up of 4,450 triangular-shaped panels. It has a novel design, using an active surface made of metal panels that can be tilted by a computer to help change the focus to different areas of the sky.
The cabin containing the feed antenna suspended on cables above the dish is also moved using a digitally-controlled winch by the computer control system to steer the instrument to receive from different directions. It is currently undergoing testing and commissioning. It observes at wavelengths of 10 cm to 4.3 m.
The telescope made its first discovery of two new pulsars in August 2017, barely 1 year after its first light. The new pulsars PSR J1859-01 and PSR J1931-02, which are also referred to as FAST pulsar #1 and #2 (FP1 and FP2), were detected on August 22 and 25 and are 16,000 and 4,100 light years away, respectively.
 On 26 December 2008, a foundation laying ceremony was held on the construction site.Construction started in March 2011, and the last panel was installed on the morning of 3 July 2016. Originally budgeted for CN¥700 million, the final cost was CN¥1.2 billion (US$180 million).
Its working frequency range of 70 MHz to 3.0 GHz,with the upper limit set by the precision with which the primary can approximate a parabola.

上海徐家匯-徐光啟墓 (The Tomb of Xu Guangqi)

 徐光啟（1562年4月24日－1633年11月8日），字子先，號玄扈，
天主教聖名保祿（拉丁語：Paulus），諡文定。南直隸松江府上海縣人，
中國明朝末年儒學、西學、天學、數學、水利、農學、軍事學等領域學者，
科學家、思想家、政治家、軍事家，天主教教友領袖和護教士，於崇禎朝官至禮部尚書兼文淵閣大學士、內閣次輔，任上病逝於北京。
徐光啟是中西文化交流和中國近代科學技術事業的先驅之一。
在明末天下危亡之際，他憂國愛民、清廉勤政，傾心竭力以實學救國利民，在西學東漸，引進西式火器和發展明軍炮兵抵禦後金，引種和推廣番薯、良種水稻等高產抗逆作物等的過程中起了關鍵作用。
徐光啟墓是明末大臣徐光啟及其部分親屬的墓地，位於中國上海徐家匯今光啟公園北側，占地3,000平方米，高2.2米，為橢圓形大墓。 墓園占地面積達到3000平米，墓園內共有10個墓穴，主穴葬著徐光啟及其夫人吳氏，左右葬著他的四個孫子及孫媳。
崇禎七年（1634年）以一品官規格賜域賜葬，派專使護靈柩歸葬上海，因時局不靖，暫厝於上海縣城大南門外的雙園別墅； 崇禎十四年（1641年）營葬營葬於松江府上海縣高昌鄉二十八保六圖西南隅。光緒二十九年（1903年）天主教江南代牧區重修增建。曾一度被荒廢，甚至變成菜園；1957年時一度重建。「文化大革命」時，變成了露天倉庫，後遭到嚴重毀壞；1983年再次重修。2003年根據1903年墓制重修，後得到良好的維護。 1959年5月26日及1977年12月7日，徐光啟墓先後兩次被公布為上海市文物保護單位
。1988年1月13日，被國務院公布為全國重點文物保護單位。
Xu Guangqi (April 24, 1562 – November 8, 1633), also known by his baptismal name Paul, was a Chinese scholar-bureaucrat, Catholic convert, agricultural scientist, astronomer, and mathematician under the Ming Dynasty.
Xu was a colleague and collaborator of the Italian Jesuits Matteo Ricci and Sabatino de Ursis and assisted their translation of several classic Western texts into Chinese,
including part of Euclid's Elements. He was also the author of the Nong Zheng Quan Shu, a treatise on agriculture. He was one of the "Three Pillars of Chinese Catholicism". His current title is Servant of God.

I visited Xu Guangqi's tomb in the winter of 2016.
   

Xiaolangdi Dam 小浪底 opens the floodgates

 The purpose of opening the floodgates to send millions of tons of silt downstream of the Yellow River. Bystanders are dwarfed as they stand watching a tremendous rush of water gushing through gaps in a dam in China, part of a carefully-choreographed operation to remove silt from the Yellow River in Luoyang, in the Henan province. This annual operation sees more than 30 million tonnes of silt sent downstream a year, with more than 390 million tonnes shifted this way over the last 13 years.
 The Xiaolangdi Dam (小浪底) is a dam in Jiyuan, Henan Province, China, and impounds the Yellow River. The facility is located about 20 km to the northwest of Luoyang. It has a total installed capacity of 1,836 MW and generates up to 5.1 TWh annually with the help of six 306 MW turbines. The dam stands 154 m tall and 1,317 m wide, and cost US$3.5 billion to build. Constructed in 1994, Xiaolangdi Dam regulates water and silt flow annually. The Dam is a multi-function project designed for flood control, ice control, dredging, industrial and municipal water supply, and hydroelectric power generation.
 

Chinese Newlyweds Get Marriage Licenses on Valentine's Day + Lantern Festival

Newlyweds pose for marriage photos at a marriage registry on the Valentine's Day as well as the Chinese traditional Lantern Festival in Boxing County of Binzhou City, east China's Shandong Province, Feb. 14, 2014. Many newlyweds chose to get marriage licenses on the Valentine's Day this year, as it coincides with the Lantern Festival, the 15th day of the first month of the Chinese lunar calendar.

The Lantern Festival (上元节 元宵节) is a festival celebrated on the fifteenth day of the first month in the lunisolar year in the lunar calendar marking the last day of the lunar New Year celebration.

In ancient times, the lanterns were fairly simple, and only the emperor and noblemen had large ornate ones. In modern times, lanterns have been embellished with many complex designs. For example, lanterns are now often made in the shape of animals. The lanterns can symbolize the people letting go of their past selves and getting new ones, which they will let go of the next year. The lanterns are almost always red to symbolize good fortune.

In Hong Kong, it is commercialized as the Chinese equivalent of Valentine's Day.

Many Happy faces. Bless them !

Yutu rover beams back pictures from the surface of the Moon

Yutu (玉兔 - "Jade Rabbit") is an unmanned lunar rover in China's Chang'e 3 mission to the Moon.
 It was launched on 1 December 2013, and reached the Moon's surface on 14 December 2013. The mission marks the first soft landing on the Moon since 1976 and the first rover to operate there since the Soviet Lunokhod 2 ceased operations on 11 May 1973. Though Yutu is 40 years behind American and Soviet rovers. It still represents a significant achievment for Chinese space effort. The scientific objectives of Chang'e-3 mainly include lunar surface topography and geology survey, lunar surface material composition and resource survey, Sun-Earth-Moon space environment detection and lunar-based astronomical observation.
Chang'e 3 will attempt to perform the first direct measurement of the structure and depth of the lunar soil down to a depth of 30 m (98 ft), and investigate the lunar crust structure down to several hundred meters deep. The Yutu rover has a mass of 140 kg, with a payload capacity of 20 kg. Yutu is equipped with a robotic arm to position its APXS near a target sample. In addition, the rover can transmit video in real time, and has automatic sensors to prevent it from colliding with other objects. Yutu was designed to explore an area of 3 square kilometres during its 3-month mission, with a maximum travelling distance of 10 km. The Yutu rover carries a ground-penetrating radar and spectrometers to inspect the composition of the soil and the structure of the lunar crust beneath it. The lander entered sleep mode on 25 December, followed by the rover on 26 December.
On 11 January 2014, after the two-week lunar night was over, both the rover and lander were taken out of sleep mode. On 16 January, the rover completed its first examination of the lunar soil.
Future missions may bring moon soil back to earth. Some of pictures from the surface of the Moon:
View of Earth from the Moon – by Chang’e-3 on Christmas Day 2013 Earth indeed is a blue marble.
From extreme ultraviolet camera on Dec. 16, 2013 shows the observation of the Earth’s plasmasphere
Photo of Yutu moon rover taken by camera on the Chang’e-3 moon lander on Dec. 15, 2013 Chinese flag is brightly red.
Yutu portrait taken by the Chang’e-3 lander on Dec. 22, 2013
Photo of Chang’e-3 moon lander emblazoned with Chinese national flag taken by the panoramic camera on the Yutu moon rover on Dec. 22, 2013
A digitally-combined polar panorama shows a 360 degree color view of the moonscape around the Chang’e-3 lander after the Yutu moon rover drove onto the lunar surface leaving visible tracks behind

China's gold medalists at the 2012 London Olympics

China performed well at the 2012 London Olympics.
A total of 396 Chinese athletes, 171 male and 225 female, were selected by the Chinese Olympic Committee to compete in 23 sports.
China won the second-largest number of gold medals at the 2012 Olympics, with 38. China's total medal count of 88 was second only to that of the United States.
Congratulations to these Olympics Champions!

China's Aizhai Bridge - world's highest and longest tunnel-to-tunnel bridge 矮寨大桥

The Aizhai Bridge (矮寨大桥) is a suspension bridge on the G65 Baotou–Maoming Expressway near Jishou, Hunan, China.

With a main span of 1,146 meters and a deck height of 350 meters, it is the sixth-highest bridge in the world and the world's twelfth-longest suspension bridge. Of the world's 400 or so highest bridges, none has a main span as long as Aizhai. It is also the world's highest and longest tunnel-to-tunnel bridge.

Construction on the Aizhai Bridge began in October 2007 and was completed by the end of 2011, ahead of schedule.The bridge was temporarily opened to pedestrians during the 2012 Spring Festival and was formally opened to traffic in March 2012.

The bridge was built with the assistance of a $208 million loan from the Asian Development Bank; the loan also funded 64 kilometers of expressway construction and upgrades to 129 kilometers of local roads. The bridge and the associated road construction reduced the travel time between Jishou and Chadong from 4 hours to less than 1 hour.

矮寨特大悬索桥，位于湖南省吉首市矮寨镇，是中国国家高速公路网主干线包茂高速公路吉首－茶峒段的关键工程，跨越德夯峡谷，主跨跨径1176米，是世界上峡谷跨径最大的钢桁梁悬索桥。桥面宽度为24.5米，双向四车道，桥面距峡谷底部高度为355米。于2007年10月开工建设，2012年3月31日建成通车。