![]() It is currently in the third year of a five-year $20.15 million grant. Since 2018, Arecibo has been managed for the NSF by the University of Central Florida ( UCF). The latter was based on a novel by Carl Sagan. In an attempt to communicate with any existing extra-terrestrial civilizations, scientists in 1974 used Arecibo to send an interstellar radio message.Ī major tourist attraction, Arecibo received thousands of visitors every year and actively took part in public outreach and science education, motivating many to pursue careers in engineering and astronomy.Īrecibo was also a popular culture icon, having been featured in the 1995 James Bond film GoldenEye and in the 1997 film Contact. One year later, scientists Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor used the observatory to find the first evidence of gravitational waves, a phenomenon predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity, by studying a binary pulsar system, earning them that year’s Nobel Prize in Physics. The first exoplanet ever discovered was found with Arecibo in 1992. Just one year after Arecibo opened, a research team led by Gordon Pettingill used the telescope to determine that Mercury’s rotation period is 59 days rather than the 88 days previously believed.Īirplane view of Arecibo Observatory before it was damaged. The observatory has been used to study a wide range of fields in astronomy and astrophysics ranging from pulsars to near-Earth asteroids to fast radio bursts. Over 57 years, it has been one of the most productive telescopes in both the number and scope of discoveries made using it. Iconic HistoryĪrecibo opened in 1963 after three years of construction. Preliminary assessments indicate the observatory’s learning center sustained significant damage from falling cables.” As the 900-ton instrument platform, fell, the telescope’s support cables also dropped. ![]() In a public statement, the NSF said, “Initial findings indicate that the top section of all three of the…telescope’s support towers broke off. In a bid to save the telescope, supporters, including Puerto Rico’s Congressional representative Jenniffer Gonzalez, organized a formal petition to the White House asking the federal government to send the Army Corps of Engineers to evaluate whether Arecibo could be stabilized and ultimately repaired.Īt 6:55 AM EST on Tuesday, the telescope’s 900-ton instrument platform, suspended via cables connected to three towers, fell 450 feet (137 meters) onto already damaged reflector dish. That cable’s collapse occurred three months after the telescope’s reflector dish was damaged in August of this year when an auxiliary cable slid out of its socket in one of the observatory’s towers, leaving the dish with a 100-foot gash and causing the collapse of other cables when it fell.Īn engineering team was in the process of determining the cause of the first cable break and working out a repair plan when the second cable, this time a main one, collapsed onto the dish, further damaging both it and other cables.įollowing the second accident, the National Science Foundation ( NSF), which owns Arecibo, determined that repairing the telescope could cause further catastrophic collapse that posed a threat to the lives of the technicians who would be doing the work. 1, after one of its main cables broke on Nov. ![]() The Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, a world-famous 1,000-foot-wide radio telescope through which major discoveries in astronomy and astrophysics were made, collapsed on the morning of Tuesday, Dec. Photo Credit: Ricardo ARDUENGO / AFP via Getty Images. The radio telescope, which once starred in a James Bond film, collapsed Tuesday when its 900-ton receiver platform fell 450 feet (140 meters) and smashed onto the radio dish below. This aerial view shows the damaged Arecibo Observatory after its instrument platform collapsed onto its reflector dish in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, on December 1, 2020.
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