China has completed construction of what is now the world’s largest array of telescopes dedicated to studying the Sun and how its behaviour affects Earth. The Daocheng Solar Radio Telescope (DSRT), located on a plateau in Sichuan province in southwest China, consists of 313 dishes, each with a diameter of six metres (19.7 feet), forming a circle with a circumference of 3.14 kilometres (1.95 miles).
The DSRT is focused on observing solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which can interfere with or overload electronics and wreak havoc on and above Earth. CMEs are triggered by realignments in the star’s magnetic field that occur in sunspots, and when directed at Earth can threaten power grids, telecommunications, orbiting satellites and even put the safety of astronauts aboard the International Space Station and China’s newly completed Tiangong space station at risk.