Arecibo telescope collapses in Puerto Rico captured on video by drone

The dramatic collapse of one of the world’s largest single-plate radio telescopes was captured on camera, showing cables exploding and a 900-ton receiver platform crashing onto the reflector dish below.

The huge Arecibo radio telescope already damaged in Puerto Rico – famous for its contributions to space science and as a filming location for Hollywood films like GoldenEye and Contact – collapsed completely on Tuesday, local time.

In August, two auxiliary cables supporting the reflector broke for unknown reasons, forcing officials to close the observatory and study ways to repair the damage.

A main cable then broke in early November and it was determined that it would be too dangerous to repair the ancient observatory and that it should be demolished, ending the telescope’s rich scientific journey that began in 1963.

The US National Science Foundation (NSF), owner of the observatory, said early results from the December 1 collapse indicated that the top section of all three telescope support towers broke and that when the instrument has fallen, the support cables have also fallen. .

A drone used to monitor the telescope since the snap of cables in previous months captured the moment the receiver fell and the 305-meter-wide reflector collapsed under the debris.

The observatory gained fame when it was used for key scenes in the 1995 James Bond film GoldenEye, starring Pierce Brosnan, in which one scene showed the telescope collapsing, killing the film’s villain.

The telescope – which received radio waves from space – had been used by scientists around the world to search for possible signatures of extraterrestrial life, study distant planets and find potentially dangerous asteroids.

‘It sounded like a rumble’

The collapse stunned many scientists who had relied on what had been the largest single-disc radio telescope in the world until it was overtaken by the Chinese FAST observatory in recent years.

“It [the collapse] it sounded like a rumble. I knew exactly what it was, “said Jonathan Friedman, who worked for 26 years as an associate researcher at the observatory and still lives near it.

“I was screaming. Personally I was out of control … I have no words to express it. It’s a very deep, terrible feeling.”

Dr. Friedman ran up a small hill near his home and confirmed his suspicions: A cloud of dust hovered in the air where the facility once stood, demolishing the hopes of some scientists that the telescope could somehow be repaired.

“It’s a huge loss,” said Carmen Pantoja, an astronomer and professor at the University of Puerto Rico who used the telescope for her doctorate.

“It was a chapter in my life.”

The observatory also includes a 12-meter telescope used for radio astronomy research and a facility used to study the Earth’s upper atmosphere and ionosphere.

“We are saddened by this situation, but grateful that no one was hurt,” NSF director Sethuraman Panchanathan said in a statement.

“Our goal now is to assess the damage, find ways to restore operations elsewhere in the observatory and work to continue supporting the scientific community and the people of Puerto Rico.”

NSF said it will authorize the University of Central Florida, which operated the telescope, to continue paying Arecibo staff and come up with a plan to continue research at the observatory.

ABC / Wires