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At more than 2.5 kilometers high, Lenghu is “known to have a clear sky as usual,” says Licai Deng, a scientist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and author of the new research. “At the same time, the Lenghu area has a spectacular landscape similar to Mars.” Denge says the local government, eager to attract tourists interested in astronomy and geography, hired his team to study the area and see if it would be a good place to build an observatory.
The four main factors influence the proper location for astronomical research. The first is whether the sky is usually clear, which does not mean dense cloud formation and very little light pollution. The second is the stability of local air and weather conditions — and what effect the atmosphere will have on optical and infrared observations at night (even the smallest airborne particles can interfere). The third is that the site is connected to infrastructure (like electricity) and can be accessed without too many problems. And finally, you want an area where the night sky will be protected from human activities.
High-altitude places like Lenghu are very interesting for astronomers because there is less atmosphere while looking at objects in space. The researchers monitored the Lenghu area for three years, measuring sky darkness, weather, weather conditions and so on. They found that the area had a good score on at least four factors in other potential sites studied in the Tibetan plateau. Researchers believe that in many ways, it could be better than sites in Hawaii and Chile. There is less variability in air temperatures and more stable atmospheric conditions, and the sky is slightly clearer. The amount of water vapor in the air is also small, which is especially useful for infrared observations that are important in cosmology. Weather records for about three decades show an average of 0.71 inches of rain per year. “In this context, Lenghu has the capacity to take on large facilities,” Denge says.
In the long run, Lenghu will be protected more than Hawaii or Chile from the effects of human activity. The town adopted rules in 2017 to protect the dark sky, so light pollution should be kept to a minimum.
“The results presented at the Lenghu site are as good as those found for Mauna Kea, which is considered one of the best sites in the world,” he says. Paul Hickson, An astronomer at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, who has previously conducted field tests The dome Antarctica. “One thing that is particularly appealing about this location is the attention paid to light pollution control.”
In a way, this new research is a confirmation of China’s current astronomical plans around Lenghu. These plans include the construction of a 2.5-meter imaging survey telescope, a one-meter infrared solar telescope, which will be part of a series of eight international telescopes, and another 1.8 meters and 0.8 meters for planetary sciences.
Deng noted that Tsinghua University and the University of Arizona are working together on the construction 6.5-meter telescope To act on the summit of Mount Saishiteng. And there are new plans to put a 12-meter telescope in it as well. “It’s going to be very crowded at the top of the mountain,” Denge says.
These instruments will go a long way on the map of China in terms of infrared and optical astronomy – there are a couple of “big” telescopes that work in places like Chile. But they are still fading compared to “very large” observatories being built around the world, such as Chile’s 24.5-meter Magellanic Giant Telescope, Hawaii’s Thirty-Meter Telescope, and Chile’s 39.3-meter Very Large Telescope. The kind of science that these tools can extract is expected to usher in a new era of astronomy. If China is to implement an ambitious astronomy program, it will have to arrive fairly quickly.
It is a good thing, then, to have the plateau of Tibet. “High, dry, isolated mountains are the best places for astronomy,” Hickson says. “There may be other potential sites that have not yet been explored in the Tibetan plateau, perhaps better, perhaps.”
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