Published on: 2026-09-08
Source: People’s Republic of China — Translation
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Beijing, September 8 /Xinhua/ — The Tianyuy telescope, located in the Lenghu area of Qinghai province in northwest China, has successfully taken its first image, capturing the North America Nebula and the Pelican Nebula in the constellation Cygnus, as well as more than a million surrounding stars of the Milky Way.
According to the newspaper “Renmin Ribao,” this achievement signifies the telescope’s transition to operating for scientific observations.
The “Tianyou” telescope project was launched in 2022 at the initiative of the Tsung-Dao Lee Institute of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, with the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences participating as its developer. The telescope is expected to be officially put into operation for scientific research in October 2026.
It is reported that the Tianyo telescope is capable of covering a patch of sky nearly nine square degrees in one shot, which is equivalent to 40 visible areas of the full Moon on the celestial sphere.
Many turbulent events in the Universe, such as star explosions and gravitational wave bursts during neutron star mergers, often fade within seconds or minutes. When space telescopes or gravitational wave detectors send out alerts, the Tianyou telescope can not only quickly target the source of the celestial phenomenon, but also “rewind” the process of the phenomenon in the area of the sky it is observing in real time by a few seconds, the report says.
The Tiangy telescop will conduct continuous photometric monitoring of hundreds of millions of celestial objects, recording the slightest changes in their brightness to detect exoplanets, various types of variable stars, supernovae, and small bodies in the Solar System, said Associate Professor Li from the Zundao Institute and the project leader of the Tiangy telescope, Feng Fabo, to the newspaper.
Currently, the “Tianyu” project has already attracted research groups from the United Kingdom, Belgium, and Chile, and its data will be compared with the results of similar projects conducted domestically and abroad.
The Tianyuy telescope will gradually transition from commissioning observations to stable operation, as well as from remote control to fully automated observation mode. -0-
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