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The Arecibo radio telescope is the largest fixed radio telescope in the world and is located in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. The satellite dish has a diameter of 305 meters and was originally built in 1963. This giant radio telescope was operated by the Metropolitan University of Puerto Rico, in the United States, and was the main tool in the search for extraterrestrial life, through the project SETI @ home.
Last Monday, the support system failed. Cables and tools hit the record causing a huge crash.
The Arecibo radio telescope could not stand the wear ...
The Arecibo radio telescope is at the end of its life and it was already certain that it would be dismantled in the near future. In the last few years of operation, only one third of the telescope's time was used for ionospheric studies; another third was devoted to galaxies and the rest of the time was devoted to the astronomy of pulsars (neutron stars).
On Monday evening, the enormous instrument platform hovering over the large satellite dish of the Arecibo radio telescope collapsed due to the subsidence of the cables that supported it. The risk of this type of failure was the main reason behind the recent decision by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to close the observatory, as the potential collapse was real.
NSF has already confirmed the collapse and says it will provide more information as soon as it has it. For now the main priority is to maintain safety.
The instrument platform of the 305m telescope at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico fell overnight. No injuries were reported. NSF is working with stakeholders to assess the situation. Our top priority is to maintain security. NSF will release further details when confirmed. pic.twitter.com/Xjbb9hPUgD
- National Science Foundation (@NSF) December 1, 2020
A Twitter account of a Puerto Rican user shared an image showing the support towers supporting the cables that suspended the instrument platform on the plate, now with nothing more than an empty space between them.
Dennis Vazquez via Facebook: He took these photos of the collapse of the Arecibo Observatory. You can see the debris and remains of the platform and the Gregorian dome. pic.twitter.com/xneOGSVFYi
- Wilbert Andrés Ruperto (@ ruperto1023) December 1, 2020
The immense weight of the platform certainly caused significant damage to the record. The Arecibo radio telescope was preferred when it came to observing new pulsars, as its size made the search more sensitive and allowed astronomers to discover undetected pulsars, with an intensity too weak to be seen with smaller telescopes.
This radioscopic attraction attracts around 90,000 visitors a year.
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