China's advances in space exploration are surpassing those of the United States and attracting partners from Europe and Asia.
A satellite developed by France and China took off in search of the most powerful explosions in the universe, in a notable example of cooperation between a Western power and the Asian giant.
On Saturday, the 930 kg satellite carrying four instruments (two French and two Chinese) took off around 3:00 p.m. (07:00 GMT) aboard a Chinese Long March 2C rocket from a base in Xichang, in the southwest province of China. from Sichuan, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
Developed by engineers from both countries, the Space Variable Object Monitor (SVOM) will look for bursts of gamma rays, whose light has traveled billions of light years to reach Earth.
Gamma-ray bursts usually occur after the explosion of huge stars (more than 20 times larger than the Sun) or the merger of compact stars.
Extremely bright cosmic rays can emit a burst of energy equivalent to more than a billion suns.
Observing them is like “looking back in time, since the light from these objects takes a long time to reach us,” Ore Gottlieb, an astrophysicist at the Center for Computational Astrophysics at the Flatiron Institute in New York, explained to AFP.
“SVOM has the potential to unravel several mysteries in the field of [gamma-ray bursts, GRBs]including the detection of the most distant GRBs in the universe, which correspond to the oldest GRBs,” Gottlieb added.
The most distant explosions identified to date occurred just 630 million years after the Big Bang, when the universe was in its infancy.
When in orbit 625 kilometers (388 miles) above Earth, the satellite will send its data to observatories. Once it detects a burst, SVOM will send an alert to a team that is on duty 24 hours a day.
When analyzed, the data could help better understand the composition of space and the dynamics of gas clouds or other galaxies, according to analysts.
However, the main challenge is that gamma ray bursts are extremely brief, leaving scientists in a race against time to gather information.
This project arises from a partnership between the French and Chinese space agencies, as well as other scientific and technical groups from both nations.
Space cooperation at this level between the West and China is also quite rare, especially since the United States banned all collaboration between the US space agency NASA and Beijing in 2011.
“US concerns about technology transfer have inhibited its allies from collaborating with the Chinese, but this happens occasionally,” Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in the United States, told AFP.
So while SVOM is “by no means unique,” it is still “significant” in the context of space collaboration between China and the West, McDowell added.
China's advances in space and lunar exploration are rapidly surpassing those of the United States, attracting partners from European and Asian countries as a result.
China's Chang'e-6 lunar probe this month carried payloads from the European Space Agency, as well as Pakistani, French and Italian research institutes, to the far side of the Moon.
China is working with countries such as Brazil, Egypt and Thailand to develop and launch satellites.
