An earthquake hit Arecibo before the fall

The historic Arecibo Telescope in Puerto Rico, the largest single camera radio telescope in the world for more than half a century, collapsed on Tuesday following the serious structural failures that began to occur in August.

The failure of the last supporting rope that separated Arecibo from the final collapse occurred in the morning of local time, probably following a seismic wave hit by an earthquake in the nearby Dominican Republic. This further increased the tension in the already weakened structure.

This comes from information from the Puerto Rican seismic network, which last night published the tremors captured by the AOPR seismic station, located directly in the Arecibo Observatory.

Matter of time

The seismic record captured an incoming wave from the Dominican Republic, which with a magnitude 4.0 reached the radio telescope at 7.51 am local time. At 7, 52 minutes and 42 seconds, the seismogram captured another big shock: this time it was the fall of a 900-ton metal platform with dipoles.

Extent of damage to the Arecibo radio telescope:

From a height of about 140 meters, it collapsed into a huge spherical reflector – a plate with a diameter of 305 meters, made up of a series of perforated aluminum panels.

Recall that the huge platform with scientific and technical equipment suspended in the air was supported by steel ropes that led from three tall reinforced concrete towers. Six ropes ran from each tower.

However, only four remained on one of the towers. One was released in August, damaging the telescope plate e another broke in early November. Subsequently, damage to other ropes was monitored and it was hypothesized that if another failed, the telescope structure would collapse.

Apparently that’s what happened. Each string is made up of about 18 “fibers”, smaller strings that break gradually.

Meteorologist Deborah Martorell told El Nuevo Día that on Monday she was in the science complex and felt one of the wires snapped. Earlier this weekend, six more were to be broken.

Observatory personnel would have already known that the radio telescope was less than a week old. The construction would go beyond the point from which there would be no return only a few days before the collapse.

Tense reports

The telescope is operated by the American National Science Foundation (NSF), which only runs in the second half of November announced that it will not attempt to repair the device from worker safety concerns. Instead, he announced a controlled demolition. That the threat was more than real has finally been confirmed.

However, the NSF has earned criticism from Arecibo Observatory personnel for its slow response to the first rope failure in August. He considered the next step for a long time, until finally another failure occurred, just four days before the scheduled repairs began.

After the November bankruptcy, the head of the observatory, Francisco Cordova, defended the procedure, saying that the situation was evaluated very carefully and that the priority of personnel safety was preferred.

“The bureaucracy and the waiting of the NSF destroyed the platform of the Arecibo Observatory. It is very difficult, because yesterday there was a lot of sadness, a lot of remorse and worries,” Martorell described the atmosphere in the scientific complex. On Tuesday morning, one of her employees called her in tears and gave her the sad news.

The NSF has considered closing Arecibo twice already: in 2006 and later in 2016. The observatory struggled for a long time with insufficient funding.

The strained relations between the employees and the operator were also highlighted by the Finnish astronomer Anne Virkki, who heads the radio telescope. He shared the critical article in question in El Nuevo Día on Twitter with a description of “recommended reading”.

The Arecibo radio telescope was a star not only on the scientific scene, but also on the big screen. He appeared, for example, in Bondovka’s Golden Eye (GoldenEye):

They no longer want to save it, but to rebuild it

Observatory personnel refused to accept the announced decision to demolish the telescope. They created a Twitter account Save the Arecibo Observatory and launched an online petition to the White House. The goal was to reverse the decision and, despite the risk, try to fix a scientifically rare device.

“Repair is one of the options, while maintaining all possible preventive measures. Unfortunately, efforts to stabilize the observatory are taking a long time. The US Congress must approve the rescue of the observatory and reverse the original NSF decision.” , described Professor Abel Méndez for Živé.sk, who, thanks to Arecibo, has explored stars with planets on which life could potentially be possible.

The statement was given to the editorial office last Friday, a few days before the collapse of the telescope structure. However, this did not mean the end of the initiative, quite the contrary.

Arecibo workers are now pushing for a complete redevelopment of the science complex. According to Martorell, it would cost 200 million (165.8 million euros) of US dollars. However, if it were to be a more technically and scientifically capable telescope, the price would have to double, $ 400 million (€ 331.5 million).

But for that to happen, public pressure will be important. For example, as regards the petition, 100,000 signatures are needed to get to the White House. So far it has 65,000.

^{(1 EUR = 1.2066 USD)}