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The famous Arecibo Observatory telescope in Puerto Rico, which once starred in a James Bond film, collapsed on Tuesday when its 900-tonne receiving platform plummeted 140 meters onto the radio dish below.
Engineers had recently warned of the massive facility’s decayed condition, and the US National Science Foundation (NSF) only announced last month that it would be dismantled.
Two of the cables holding the platform above the radio dish – which measures 300 meters in diameter – snapped this year and the structure finally gave way on Tuesday morning.
The photographs showed clouds of dust rising into the air and the remnants of telescope instruments scattered around the site.
Aerial view of the damage to the Arecibo Observatory on 1 December 2020 (Ricardo Arduengo / AFP)
“We can confirm that the platform has crashed and that we have no news of injuries,” NSF spokesman Rob Margetta told AFP.
The telescope was one of the largest in the world and has been an instrument for many astronomical discoveries since the 1960s, as well as being famous for its dramatic size and setting.
An action scene from the Bond movie Golden eye with Pierce Brosnan it was held high above the plate, and in Contact, an astronomer played by Jodie Foster used the observatory in her search for alien signals.
“Sad day for astronomy”
Abel Mendez, director of the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo, said the platform fell shortly before 8:00 am (1200 GMT), describing it as “a total disaster.”
“Many students are trained in astronomy in the observatory, they are inspired like me to make a career in science and astronomy,” he said.
“The loss of the Arecibo telescope is a great loss to the world, but more of a loss to Puerto Rico. It is an icon for our island.”
Damage suffered to the 305-meter telescope of the Arecibo Observatory. (UCF)
The telescope had been in operation for 57 years until August, and scientists had lobbied the NSF to overrule its decision to close the site.
In August, an auxiliary cable failed after it slipped from its socket in one of the towers and left a 30-meter gap in the dish below.
Engineers were considering the damage and how to repair it when a main cable connected to the same tower broke on November 6.
A controlled demolition was planned before Tuesday to avoid an unexpected collapse.
Among the telescope’s successes was the discovery of the first exoplanet in 1992 – a planet outside the solar system – and in 1981 it helped produce the first radar maps of the surface of Venus.
The observatory’s website states that the telescope is “a world-leading radio astronomy, solar system radar and atmospheric physics facility, providing highly relevant data to support science discovery, innovation and advancement.” .
“What a sad day for astronomy and planetary science around the world and one of the most iconic telescopes of all time”, Thomas Zurbuchen tweeted, associate administrator in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.
The site had hoped that the decommissioning plan would preserve other parts of the observatory for future research and education.
“As we move forward, we will look for ways to assist the scientific community and maintain our strong relationship with the people of Puerto Rico,” NSF said in a tweet.
© Agence France-Presse
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