China is building space telescope that's BETTER than Nasa's as Beijing slams US for turning cosmos into 'battlefield' | The Sun
CHINA is stepping up the space race against the US with plans to switch on its own massive telescope in 2024.
The secretive country couldn't resist a sly dig at Nasa, saying that its tech will be able to see much more.
It comes amid increased tensions between the two sides on all things space.
Nasa boss Bill Nelson recently warned that efforts must be made to ensure China doesn't try to own the Moon.
The space agency opened a National Space Intelligence Center (NSIC) last month.
In response, China has accused the US of being "the main driver in turning outer space into a weapon and a battlefield".
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"It has long pursued a strategy for dominance in space and openly defined outer space as a war-fighting domain," China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said, according to the state-run news agency China News Service.
"To achieve its strategy, the US has been aggressively developing and deploying a variety of offensive outer space weapons such as directed energy and Counter Communications System, frequently holding military drills and advancing all-round military buildup and preparedness in outer space."
China's Xuntian Space Telescope is being built now and is expected to be finished by the end of the year.
It'll be launched in 2023 and should be operational by 2024, reports Chinese state-run CGTN.
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Project scientist Li Ran used the analogy of photographing a flock of sheep to compare Xuntian's prowess compared to Nasa's long-standing Hubble telescope.
"Hubble may see a sheep but the CSST sees thousands, all at the same resolution," he said.
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China's tech will feature a massive 2.5-billion pixel camera, capable of observe up to 40 percent of the sky over 10 years.
It'll be the country's first large space telescope.
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