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For the second time in a few months, a cable accident occurred at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, causing further damage to one of the largest and most powerful radio telescopes in the world.
In August, both astronomers and science lovers were stunned to see a giant hole ripped open by the structure’s huge reflector dish, resulting from a broken auxiliary cable that fell and crashed into the structure, leaving an ugly 30-inch long gash. meters.
Over the next few months, the observatory’s engineers and workers prepared for a complex repair job, initially slated for early this week. Unfortunately, a second cable failure on Friday evening local time further complicated the situation.
“This is certainly not what we wanted to see, but the important thing is that no one has been hurt,” says the director of the observatory Francisco Cordova.
“We were careful in our assessment and prioritized safety in planning the repairs that should have started on Tuesday. Now this.”
The Arecibo Observatory in 2019, before this year’s incidents. (UCF)
According to the University of Central Florida (UCF), which runs the Arecibo Observatory on behalf of the National Science Foundation, the second cable incident appears to have some relationship to the first.
Both cables were connected to the same support tower and it is possible that the second outage was triggered by additional strain after the first failure.
Observers at the facility had been monitoring all cables since the August incident and had noticed that the wires had broken on the cable which had snapped last week, presumably due to fraying of the extra cargo. Unfortunately, before the repair bumpers were installed, the second cable also gave way, falling onto the dish, further damaging it and also damaging neighboring cables.
By working with engineers to assess the situation, UCF is accelerating the ongoing repair plan, with the goal of reducing the strain on the remaining cables as quickly as possible. Two new cables are already on their way to the observatory and the team will continue to evaluate the structure pending the arrival of the pieces.
“There is a lot of uncertainty until we are able to stabilize the structure,” says Cordova. “He has our full attention. We are evaluating the situation with our experts and hope to have more to share soon.”
What makes the entire repair and fortification project even more challenging is the age of Arecibo – the historic structure was built in the 1960s and held the title of the world’s largest single aperture radio telescope for over half a century, until it was replaced by the even more gigantic 500-meter FAST (Aperture Spherical Telescope) China, which began its test phase in 2016 and reached full operation in January.
During its long-standing service, the Arecibo facility has reached dozens of astronomical milestones, observing and recording new scientific measurements of distant exoplanets, asteroids, pulsars, radio emissions and molecules in distant galaxies.
The observatory was also at the forefront of the search for extra-terrestrial information (SETI), and was the transmitter of the Arecibo message, a pioneering attempt in 1974 to transmit an interstellar radio signal.
It may have been eclipsed by FAST in terms of size, but the Arecibo Observatory is expected to remain decades of discovery nonetheless, but only if its seemingly growing serious structural problems can be solved.
“That’s not good, but we’re committed to getting the facility back online,” says Cordova. “It is simply too important a tool for the advancement of science.”
This is certainly true, but for an outdated structure that has been in operation since before humanity visited the Moon, it is difficult to know for sure how severe the damage is and how much fortifying or repairing the structure will eventually be, let alone if others occur. accidents in the short term.
We hope for a positive outcome and that emergency measures can stabilize this pillar of 20th century astronomy. But even before these recent cable breaks, the observatory was still receiving repairs for damage caused by Hurricane Maria, which struck Puerto Rico in 2017.
“It’s not a pretty picture,” said radio astronomer Joanna Rankin of the University of Vermont Science. “This is damn serious.”
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