China displaces 9,000 villagers in a search for extraterrestrial life

China sees the cost of scientific progress.

(Image credit: ChinaFotoPress/ChinaFotoPress via Getty Images)

An estimated 9,110 Chinese villagers will soon be forced from their homes for the sake of finding extraterrestrial life. China's state news agency Xinhua reported Tuesday that the installation of what The New York Times reports to be "the world's biggest radio telescope" in Pingtang and Luodian Counties in the southwestern province of Guizhou necessitates that everyone in a three-mile radius relocate. The telescope, which measures 1,640 feet in diameter, is being installed to detect signs of alien life by reportedly picking up radio signals from "distant corners of the universe," The New York Times reports.

Officials say they will give each dislocated person the equivalent of $1,800 in housing compensation. Construction of the telescope, whose technical name is the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), is expected to be completed by September. It will cost an estimated $184 million.