Yao Rui: Exploring the Universe with the “Sky Eye”

Editor’s Note

Yao Rui, an alumna of Tsinghua University, is a young researcher at the National Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences(NAOC). There, she heads the mechanical group of the operational and development center for the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST), the world’s largest single-dish radio telescope.

Yao Rui

Yao is among the Tsinghua graduates involved in the gigantic telescope’s construction.

"It’s my lifelong honor to participate in such a great cause," she said.

In her nearly 12 years with the NAOC, Yao, together with her team members, has resolved several key scientific problems related to FAST, with key theoretical and technological innovations, contributing immensely to China’s space exploration efforts to better understand the universe.

Located in Pingtang County of Southwest China’s Guizhou Province, FAST, also known as Tianyan in Chinese or "Sky Eye”, has three times the sensitivity of the world's second-largest telescope, which greatly extends the vision of the universe, allowing scientists to explore the universe in a way that was not possible before.

the FAST

In 2012, Yao served as the director of FAST’s focus cabin, which is the “eye of the telescope” or the “pupil” of FAST. She and her team were responsible for its design and construction.

They optimized the main frame of the focus cabin from a cylinder to a "diamond triangle", and successfully reduced the focus cabin’s weight to ensure FAST feeds. Yet, the focus cabin still could not accommodate all six feed devices and an ultra-wideband feed receiver.

To resolve the problem, Yao’s team proposed to optimize the grouping of seven sets of feeds and operate the equipment in a group, which was unanimously recognized by experts.

In July 2016, the focus cabin was successfully installed and suspended in the air. Six months later, the acceptance work of the focus cabin was completed.

After more than three years of test runs, FAST began its formal operation in 2020.

Yao Rui gave guidance at the construction site of FAST

In fact, Yao’s involvement with the FAST project had started when she was still at Tsinghua. She was pursuing her doctoral degree in the Department of Precision Instrument and Mechanics when she participated in the simulation construction of the FAST project in Miyun.

"One of the tasks during my graduate years was to research FAST feed support. As I researched more, I became more interested in this national project and gradually got more involved in it under my tutor’s guidance,” she recounted. 

By the end of 2021, FAST has discovered more than 500 pulsars, and scientists have published more than 120 scientific papers based on FAST data, with more than 590 citations.

"This is the first time in our country that we have a telescope with such high sensitivity and good performance that radio astronomers at home and abroad want to use it," Yao said proudly.

Yao Rui at the construction site

In her view, the most important thing in technological innovation is to find the core problem. "Technological innovation is problem-driven. First, find key problems, and then resolve them with the best solutions," she said.  

In addition to scientific research, she said it’s also necessary for engineers to be all-rounded since engineering practice has strict quality, time, and funding constraints.

More than ten years of practical experience in FAST engineering have influenced Yao's teaching methods. She prefers to present a practical problem and discuss solutions with her students in class, rather than starting from theory.

Yao will continue to be the "guard" of FAST, upgrading its feed module in a few years.

"As scientific researchers, we have enough energy and strong motivation, and we should contribute to the national scientific and technological progress,"she said.

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TsinghuaRen | Yao Rui: Exploring the Universe with the “Sky Eye”

Writer: Li Ruojia

Editors: Huang Fei, Sangeet Sangroula

Designers: Zeng Wenyu, Liu Shutian