Abandoned oil town in NW China turns into popular astronomical observation base

Lenghu town, located in Mangya city, Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in northwest China's Qinghai Province, was once an important oil production base in China. Due to the depletion of its resources, the town found itself on the wane.

Today, Lenghu is making a comeback as an astronomical observation site.

The small town is surrounded by Yardang landform and earth forest landscapes. It has a permanent population of just over 300.

Fifteen kilometers southwest of Lenghu town is the former site of an oil production base, where abandoned residential houses can be found. In the hinterland of the Gobi desert, buildings of an abandoned mining company, school and hospital are still recognizable.

Photo shows the astronomical observation base in Lenghu town, Mangya city, Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in northwest China's Qinghai Province. (People's Daily/Jia Fengfeng)

In September 1958, a drilling team discovered large quantities of crude oil in Lenghu town and an oil exploration project was launched.

Despite the harsh environment, the project went ahead at full steam. In February 1959, the first vehicle loaded with oil left the town.

By the end of 1959, the annual production of oil fields in the town approached 300,000 tonnes, accounting for about 12 percent of the country's total.

At one point, more than 20,000 people worked on the oil fields in Lenghu. A new town emerged in the hinterland of the desert.

However, from the end of the 1970s, most of the oil fields in Lenghu started to stop production as a result of resource depletion. After an oil field was discovered in Qinghai and an oil production base was built in Dunhuang, northwest China's Gansu Province, oil exploration workers and their families left Lenghu.

In 2015, Tian Cairang, then deputy director of the housing and urban-rural development bureau of Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, was appointed deputy head of the administrative committee of Lenghu town. One of the thorniest issues he faced was how to develop the town.

Tian and his colleagues had thought about developing tourism. However, few culture and tourism companies were willing to invest in Lenghu due to its poor accessibility, despite having rich tourism resources including Yardang landform and the Gobi desert.

In 2017, Tian encountered Qu Xiangdong, president of Xingzhi Group, a cultural development company based in Beijing. Tian showed pictures of the beautiful scenery in Lenghu to Qu, who was captivated by its beauty, and realized that Lenghu bore a great resemblance to Mars.

Soon after that, a new highway traversing the Gobi desert and a "Mars campsite" were built in Lenghu.

Photo shows a lake at the "Mars campsite" in Lenghu town, Mangya city, Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in northwest China's Qinghai Province. (People's Visual/Cao Chunlin)

"The campsite can host 72 people in sleeping capsules and 100 people in tents. Its restaurant can also accommodate 60 visitors," said Yuan Zhenmin from Xingzhi Group, who is stationed in Lenghu.

Since it was put into operation in March 2019, the "Mars campsite" has become a hit with tourists, especially teenagers. It once received 100,000 visitors in a year, 7,800 of whom had come to take part in science popularization activities.

One night in 2017, Tian and his colleagues slept in a tent after they became lost during an inspection tour. They were mesmerized by the astounding scenery of the starry sky above the vast desert. The stars that were so visible to the naked eye made Tian think that Lenghu could be suitable for astronomical observation.

Tian visited Deng Licai, a researcher from the National Astronomical Observatories under the Chinese Academy of Sciences who was working to advance the Stellar Observations Network Group (SONG) plan in Delingha city of Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.

Deng did not believe Delingha was a good place to build the telescope as the city lights would affect its operation.

In October 2017, Deng visited Lenghu, accompanied by Tian, and found that Lenghu would be a suitable place to build the telescope. In the following months, Deng led a team to carry out on-site monitoring at Saishiteng Mountain in Lenghu. They found that 70 percent of days there had clear night skies and astronomical observation could be carried out 300 days in a year.

Photo shows a meteorological and environmental monitoring site at the astronomical observation base in Lenghu town, Mangya city, Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in northwest China's Qinghai Province. (Photo courtesy of the management committee of the Lenghu industrial park)

After that, Deng and his team submitted their survey results and the Lenghu astronomical observation base project was approved. Today, 12 astronomical telescope projects have been implemented in Lenghu, under which planning is underway to build 43 telescopes. Of these, four have been built, 29 have completed construction of observation towers and main bodies of telescopes and the remaining 10 are currently under development.

"As more infrastructure is built here and the telescopes are further tested, I believe Lenghu will gradually become an important base for international astronomical observation and a place where scientific achievements are made," said Deng.

In 2018, the "Lenghu lab" project was launched. By working with school labs, the project provides online and offline astronomy courses for middle and primary school students around the country.