Huge telescope on the agenda

BEIJING - China will start construction on a 500-meter aperture spherical telescope, the largest in the world, in Southwest China's Guizhou province next month, said Yan Jun, head of the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, on Friday.

Costing some 700 million yuan ($106 million), the telescope will stand in a huge natural hole, the Karst depression, which is as large as 30 football fields, said Yan, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

He said the Karst valley in Pingtang county of Guizhou province is the perfect place to build the huge bowl-like astronomical instrument.