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On the same day that China collected moon rocks on a groundbreaking space mission, a critical American telescope at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico collapsed.
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The observatory, built in 1963, was a beacon for US astronomical research, lasted for natural disasters, and inspired generations of Puerto Rican researchers.
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China’s success with the Chang’e-5 probe is the first time since the 1970s that lunar samples have been collected, and if the spacecraft returns to Earth safely in mid-December, it will mark a huge step forward in space exploration.
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On Tuesday, the US and China experienced very different events in the world of space exploration and observation.
The Arecibo Observatory, a colossal telescope located in Puerto Rico, has collapsed after a sharp deterioration since August. The Arecibo Observatory has been operating for 57 years as a center for astronomical observations.
Meanwhile, far from Earth’s atmosphere, the unmanned probe Chang’e-5, a Chinese spacecraft, landed on the moon to return lunar materials to Earth for the first time in nearly 50 years, the Chinese government announced.
According to NASA, China’s moon landing and recovery of moon rocks mark the first time a country acquired sample materials from the moon from the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 mission in 1976, according to NASA.
US astronauts in NASA’s Apollo program last recovered over 800 pounds of lunar samples between 1969 and 1972.
The two separate events on the same day show the stark contrast between China’s recent investments in space exploration and research and the US space efforts, which often have changing budgets and priorities.
As Business Insider previously reported, there are a myriad of roadblocks preventing the United States from returning to the Moon, including the cost of space exploration and shifting priorities with each new presidential administration.
China’s lunar program began about ten years ago with a $ 180 million investment and orbiter launches in 2007 and 2008. According to a 2019 Fortune report, while the US still spends most of it on space exploration , China’s spending increased 349% over 15 years.
The Chang’e-5 spacecraft that has landed will eventually dock with the rest of the spacecraft remaining in orbit, and from there the samples will return to Earth in the orbiter. If all the remaining steps go smoothly, the champions will land in mid-December in the Inner Mongolia region.
In Puerto Rico, the observatory’s suspended telescope fell about 450 feet and crashed into the observatory’s reflector on Tuesday morning, according to the U.S. National Science Foundation.
Built in the 1960s, the observatory was initially funded by the United States Department of Defense and is now overseen by the National Science Foundation and the University of Central Florida. The telescope made key scientific discoveries, such as detecting Earth-bound asteroids, and contributed to research that led to a Nobel Prize. It was also one of the iconic backgrounds of the James Bond film, “Goldeneye”.
Puerto Rican meteorologist Ada Monzón shouted on the air Tuesday announcing the telescope’s fall. November marked a tragic end not only for the observatory’s structure, but also for the observatory’s potential uses in the future, as the NSF announced plans to decommission the observatory before the collapse.
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