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The Arecibo Observatory radio telescope collapsed Tuesday morning when its 900-tonne suspended platform crashed into the huge dish below.
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Arecibo has been one of the best radio astronomy instruments on Earth for 57 years. His death is a major blow to asteroid tracking efforts and the hunt for alien life.
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Photos of the iconic telescope show what it looked like before and after the accident.
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The huge radio telescope of the Arecibo Observatory collapsed on Tuesday morning. Its 900-tonne platform crashed into the 1,000-foot side disc below, tearing the tops of three support towers as it fell.
The disappearance wasn’t entirely a surprise. After the telescope suffered two cable breaks in August and November, the National Science Foundation, the owner of the telescope, determined it was too structurally unhealthy for workers to safely repair. The Foundation deactivated the Puerto Rico telescope in late November and engineers were working to figure out how to take it apart. But the platform froze before the work could progress.
“Friends, it is with deep regret to inform you that the Arecibo Observatory platform has just collapsed”, said Deborah Martorell, meteorologist from Puerto Rico, she tweeted in Spanish on Tuesday morning.
Prior to the crash, the telescope’s huge platform was suspended 450 feet in the air above its giant bowl-shaped disc. The disc reflected radio waves from space to the instruments on the suspended platform.
But on Tuesday morning, the cables connecting the platform to one of the towers snapped, causing it to fall.
Jonathan Friedman, who has worked on the scientific staff of the Arecibo Observatory since 1993, told local news notiCentro that the collapse sounded like the rumble of an earthquake, a train or an avalanche.
A life spent hunting for asteroids and starring in films
Since it was completed in 1963, the Arecibo telescope has played a role in some of humanity’s most exciting discoveries about space.
It discovered the first known planet beyond our solar system, sent powerful transmissions to intercept potential aliens, and tracked down potentially dangerous asteroids to see if they could hit Earth.
It even helped scientists confirm Einstein’s theory of general relativity by detecting the first binary pulsar: a compact, highly magnetized star orbiting another star.
Arecibo also allowed researchers to hunt radio waves from potential alien technology. The only other radio telescope that matches Arecibo’s previous power is China’s five-hundred-meter spherical radio telescope (FAST).
The telescope’s size and setting also led him to a life on screen: he starred in the 1995 James Bond film “GoldenEye” and the 1997 film “Contact,” with Jodie Foster.
Scientists around the world mourn the loss of the Arecibo telescope, but for many in Puerto Rico, where it attracted 90,000 visitors a year, it was of particular importance. It has also been a training camp for graduate students in astronomy, physics, and other space-related disciplines.
“When I heard the news, I was totally devastated,” Abel Mendez, director of the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico in Arecibo, told Business Insider in November after the telescope was disabled.
Mendez had worked in the observatory since he was 10 and worked there professionally for a decade.
“It is difficult to accept. It’s like losing someone important in your life, “he said.” Yes, 2020 – it’s not good.
Morgan McFall-Johnsen, Aylin Woodward, and Dave Mosher contributed to the reports.
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