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The US National Science Foundation says it will close the huge telescope at the renowned Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico in one fell swoop to scientists around the world who depend on it to search for planets, asteroids and extraterrestrial life.
The independent government-funded agency said it was too dangerous to continue operating the single-dish radio telescope, one of the largest in the world, given the significant damage it has suffered recently.
An auxiliary cable broke in August and ripped a 30-meter hole in the reflector and damaged the dome above.
Then, on November 6, one of the telescope’s main steel cables snapped, causing further damage and leading officials to warn that the entire structure could collapse.
The telescope boasts a 305-meter-wide dish featured in Jodie Foster’s Contact and James Bond film GoldenEye and had been in operation for 57 years.
Completed in 1963, the Arecibo telescope was the largest single aperture radio telescope in the world until 2016, when China unveiled a 500-meter-wide spherical telescope.
Scientists around the world have used it to track asteroids on a path to Earth and it was part of the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project to find out if there is intelligent life beyond our planet.
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