On Sunday (July 3), technicians installed the last of the 4,450 panels that make up the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope's (FAST) giant dish, China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Project team members will soon begin testing and debugging FAST, after which Chinese scientists will use it for "early-stage research," Xinhua reported. But the instrument will be available to researchers around the world when that phase is over — likely two to three years from now.