Construction of China's first 15-meter submillimeter telescope begins

According to CCTV News, construction officially began on September 20, 2025, at the Snow Mountain Pasture in Delingha City, Haixi Prefecture, Qinghai Province, on China's first independently developed 15-meter submillimeter telescope (XSMT). Led by the Purple Mountain Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the telescope features a 15-meter aperture, high-precision antenna panel capable of high-frequency submillimeter wave observations. Equipped with advanced scientific instruments such as a large-field-of-view multicolor camera, a three-band superheterodyne receiver, and a 460GHz multibeam receiver, it supports wide-band, wide-field-of-view, and high-sensitivity observations.

Submillimeter waves, with wavelengths between 0.1 and 1 millimeter, conceal cosmic secrets completely invisible to visible and near-infrared observations, such as the dance of interstellar dust, the distribution of molecular gas, and the birth and growth of stars. Conventional visible-light telescopes struggle to penetrate the dust, but submillimeter wave observations can not only reveal the laws of galaxy formation and evolution but also trace clues to the origins of molecules related to life, playing a vital role in studying the formation of stars and planets.