China plans to build the world’s largest fully steerable radio telescope in northeast China’s Jilin province.

The radio telescope, located in Huadian City, Jilin Province, will have a diameter of 120 metres and will help scientists study planets and asteroids more accurately. The new telescope will be able to send electromagnetic waves to celestial bodies and receive the returned waves to accurately measure the distances between planets and the Earth.

To explore the universe, China previously built the 500-metre-diameter FAST spherical radio telescope in the southwestern province of Guizhou, the world’s largest and most sensitive single-dish radio telescope.

China is also building smaller but fully steerable radio telescopes at sites such as the Changbai Mountain Protection and Development Zone in Jilin, Shikatsi in Xichang and Zhitai in Xinjiang.