THE Tianyu Telescope, located in Lenghu, northwest China’s Qinghai Province, has successfully captured an image of the North America Nebula and the Pelican Nebula in the constellation Cygnus, along with more than 1 million surrounding stars in the Milky Way in a single exposure. This feat signals the telescope’s transition to the scientific observation stage.

Initiated in 2022 and led by the Tsung-Dao Lee Institute (TDLI) of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, with the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences responsible for its development, the telescope will soon begin formal scientific survey operations.

The Tianyu Telescope covers a sky area of nearly nine square degrees in a single exposure, equivalent to more than 40 full moons.

Many violent events in the universe, such as stellar explosions and gravitational-wave flashes from neutron star mergers, often fade away within seconds to minutes. When space telescopes or gravitational-wave detectors send out alerts, the Tianyu Telescope can rapidly slew toward the target and “rewind” the sky area under its real-time monitoring, restoring the celestial view from seconds before the burst.

The telescope will carry out sustained photometric monitoring of hundreds of millions of celestial objects, capturing subtle variations in their brightness to discover exoplanets, various types of variable stars, supernovae and small bodies within the solar system, according to Feng Fabo, an associate professor at the TDLI and project director of the Tianyu Telescope.

The Tianyu project has already attracted research teams from Britain, Belgium and Chile, and its data will be coordinated with survey projects both at home and abroad.(Xinhua)