FASHI survey data released by National Astronomical Observatories

The publicly available data gives astronomers worldwide an unprecedented pool of galaxies to investigate some of the universe’s biggest questions – from how the vast cosmic web took shape, to why some galaxies thrive while others fade away.

Compared with ALFALFA – the landmark US survey carried out with Arecibo from 2005 to 2012 – FASHI covered about three times as much sky and detected galaxies that were much smaller, fainter and further away, a team led by researchers from the National Astronomical Observatories reported.

For more than half a century, Arecibo’s 305-metre dish was an icon of radio astronomy.

Completed in 1963, it remained the world’s largest single-aperture radio telescope until FAST overtook it in 2016, and was behind a string of major astronomical discoveries before its giant observing platform collapsed in 2020.