Arecibo Observatory radio telescope to close

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Arecibo Observatory radio telescope to close

#1 Post by PHXPhlyer » Thu Nov 19, 2020 9:52 pm

Arecibo Observatory radio telescope to close

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science ... my-rcna182

Huge Puerto Rico radio telescope to close in blow to astronomy
The National Science Foundation said it’s too dangerous to keep operating the single dish radio telescope given the significant damage it recently sustained.

The world's largest single dish radio telescope stands at the Arecibo Observatory in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, on Aug. 25,
Nov. 19, 2020, 10:08 AM MST / Updated Nov. 19, 2020, 10:10 AM MST
By Associated Press
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The National Science Foundation announced Thursday that it will close the huge telescope at the renowned Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico in a blow to scientists worldwide who depend on it to search for planets, asteroids and extraterrestrial life.

The independent, federally funded agency said it’s too dangerous to keep operating the single dish radio telescope — one of the world’s largest — given the significant damage it recently sustained. An auxiliary cable broke in August and tore a 100-foot hole in the reflector dish and damaged the dome above it. Then on Nov. 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 1,000-foot-wide (305-meter-wide) dish featured in the Jodie Foster film “Contact” and the James Bond movie “GoldenEye” and had been operating for 57 years. Scientists worldwide have used it to track asteroids on a path to Earth, conduct research that led to a Nobel Prize and determine if a planet is potentially habitable.

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Re: Arecibo Observatory radio telescope to close

#2 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Fri Nov 20, 2020 1:19 pm

Though you remain
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"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

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Re: Arecibo Observatory radio telescope to close

#3 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Fri Nov 20, 2020 1:24 pm

Really sad to hear.
Officials suspect a potential manufacturing error is to blame for the auxiliary cable that snapped, but say they are surprised that a main cable broke about three months later given that it was supporting only about 60% of its capacity. Engineers had assessed the situation after the first cable broke, noting that about 12 of the roughly 160 wires of the second cable that eventually broke had already snapped, said Ashley Zauderer, program officer for Arecibo Observatory at NSF.

“It was identified as an issue that needed to be addressed, but it wasn’t seen as an immediate threat,” she said.

The news saddened many of the more than 250 scientists that have used a telescope that is also considered one of Puerto Rico’s main tourist attractions, drawing some 90,000 visitors a year. It also has long served as a training ground for hundreds of graduate students.

The NSF said it intends to restore operations at the observatory’s remaining assets including its two LIDAR facilities, one of which is located in the nearby island of Culebra. Those are used for upper atmospheric and ionospheric research, including analyzing cloud cover and precipitation data. Officials also aim to resume operations at the visitor center.

Wolszczan, the astronomer, said the value of the telescope won't instantly disappear for him and many other scientists because they are still working on projects based on observations and data taken from the observatory.

“The process of saying goodbye to Arecibo will certainly take some years,” he said. “It won't be instantaneous.”


https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/n ... e/?sba=AAS
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Re: Arecibo Observatory radio telescope to close

#4 Post by PHXPhlyer » Wed Dec 02, 2020 1:58 am

Arecibo Observatory collapses ahead of planned demolition

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/01/world/ar ... index.html

Arecibo Observatory collapses ahead of planned demolition
Ashley Strickland-Profile-Image
By Ashley Strickland, CNN

Updated 5:34 PM ET, Tue December 1, 2020

Arecibo Observatory's 305-meter telescope is shown in November 2020 with visible damage ahead of the collapse.
(CNN)The instrument platform of the 305-meter telescope at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico collapsed overnight, according to the National Science Foundation.

It's a final blow to one of the most powerful telescopes on Earth that has aided astronomical discoveries for 57 years and withstood hurricanes, earthquakes and tropical storms.
Engineers assessed the damage and determined that all three of the telescope's support towers broke off, sending the 900-ton instrument platform plummeting down to the dish below. The telescope's support cables also dropped. The observatory's learning center was significantly damaged by the falling cables as well.
The collapse occurred just weeks after NSF announced that the telescope would be decommissioned and disassembled through a controlled demolition after sustaining irreparable damage earlier this year.
"The instrument platform of the 305m telescope at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico fell overnight. No injuries were reported. NSF is working with stakeholders to assess the situation. Our top priority is maintaining safety. NSF will release more details when they are confirmed," according to a tweet by the National Science Foundation.

"NSF is saddened by this development. As we move forward, we will be looking for ways to assist the scientific community and maintain our strong relationship with the people of Puerto Rico," the foundation said in another tweet.
The spherical radio/radar telescope includes a radio dish 1,000 feet across and a 900-ton instrument platform suspended 450 feet above it. Cables connected to three towers hold the telescope in place.

"We are saddened by this situation but thankful that no one was hurt," said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan in a statement. "When engineers advised NSF that the structure was unstable and presented a danger to work teams and Arecibo staff, we took their warnings seriously and continued to emphasize the importance of safety for everyone involved. Our focus is now on assessing the damage, finding ways to restore operations at other parts of the observatory, and working to continue supporting the scientific community, and the people of Puerto Rico."
An auxiliary cable came loose from a socket on one of the towers in August, creating a 100-foot gash in the dish. Engineers were assessing and working on a plan to repair the damage when another main cable on the tower broke on November 6.
When it broke, the cable crashed into the reflector dish below, causing additional damage.

After the break on November 6, engineers inspected the rest of the cables and discovered new breaks as well as slippage from some of the sockets on the towers. Multiple engineering companies reviewed the damage. They determined that the telescope could collapse because it is "in danger of catastrophic failure" and the cables were weaker than expected.
The latest review revealed that damage to the telescope could not be stabilized without risking staff and the construction team. This led to the NSF making the decision to decommission the telescope after 57 years.

"We believe the structure will collapse in the near future if left untouched," according to a letter by engineering firm Thornton Tomasetti that assessed the observatory ahead of the decommissioning announcement on November 19. "Controlled demolition, designed with a specific collapse sequence determined and implemented with the use of explosives, will reduce the uncertainty and danger associated with collapse."
The firm also recommended that this be carried out "as soon as pragmatically possible."
Those plans were underway when the telescope collapsed.
The NSF said its priorities include safety at the site, conducting a damage assessment and containing or mitigating any environmental damage. The agency will also focus on bringing any ongoing scientific and educational support from the observatory back online.
The foundation will also ensure that Arecibo staff will be paid and make repairs to research tools, such as the roof of the Light Detection and Ranging, or LIDAR, facility and the 12-meter telescope used for radio astronomy research.
The NSF had planned to preserve as much of the observatory as it could to allow the facility to serve as a hub for research and education in the future, as well as restoring operations at the observatory. There is no word yet on how this collapse impacts those plans or if the foundation was able to migrate all of the archival data collected by the telescope to off-site servers.
Of interest is the LIDAR geospace research facility, the visitor center and the off-site Culebra facility for analyzing precipitation and cloud cover data.
A legacy of discoveries
Over the years, Arecibo Observatory has revealed new details about our planet's ionosphere, the solar system and worlds beyond it.
The telescope has supported and contributed to important discoveries in radio astronomy as well as planetary and solar system research, including gravitational waves.
The Arecibo telescope played a key role in discovering the first planet outside our solar system and has helped astronomers identify potentially hazardous asteroids en route to Earth.
Observations made by the telescope helped discover the first binary pulsar in 1974 (which led to the 1993 Nobel Prize in physics), supported NASA's Viking mission, produced the first radar maps of Venus' surface and spotted the first exoplanet in 1992.

More recently, Arecibo detected organic molecules in a distant galaxy and discovered the first repeating fast radio burst.
The observatory, which was featured in the James Bond film "GoldenEye," was completed in 1963 and has been helmed by the NSF since 1970. It is operated and managed by a team at the University of Central Florida, the Universidad Ana G. Méndez and Yang Enterprises Inc.
The observatory is so beloved and critical to science, there was even a Change.org petition to save the observatory after the decommissioning was announced. It had more than 35,000 signatures.
"Arecibo has been an incredibly productive facility for nearly 60 years," said Jonathan Lunine, the David C. Duncan professor in the physical sciences, and chair of the department of astronomy at Cornell University, in a statement after the decommissioning was announced.
Giant asteroid flying by Earth next week looks like it's wearing a face mask
Giant asteroid flying by Earth next week looks like it's wearing a face mask
The telescope was designed and constructed by Cornell.
"For the Cornell scientists and engineers who took a daring dream and realized it, for the scientists who made new discoveries with this uniquely powerful radio telescope and planetary radar, and for all the young people who were inspired to become scientists by the sight of this enormous telescope in the middle of the island of Puerto Rico, Arecibo's end is an inestimable loss."
Scientists worry about projects that were in progress using the Arecibo telescope, as well as what it means for future detections -- especially of asteroids that come near Earth.
After the decommissioning was announced, NASA made a statement.
"The planetary radar capability at Arecibo, funded by NASA's Near-Earth Object (NEO) Observations Program, has served as one of two major planetary radar capabilities. It has allowed NASA to fully characterize the precise orbits, sizes, and shapes of some NEOs passing within radar range after they are discovered by wide-field optical telescope survey projects."
But NASA's fully operational Goldstone Observatory in California will also be able to characterize these objects, "so NASA's NEO search efforts are not impacted by the planned decommissioning of Arecibo's 305m radio telescope."

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Re: Arecibo Observatory radio telescope to close

#5 Post by Karearea » Wed Dec 02, 2020 6:29 am

"El Observatorio ya no es" - 3:02

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkfFuz13dYE

And with the morn, those angel faces smile...

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Re: Arecibo Observatory radio telescope to close

#6 Post by Rwy in Sight » Thu Dec 03, 2020 8:42 pm

It did collapse after all

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Re: Arecibo Observatory radio telescope to close

#7 Post by probes » Fri Dec 04, 2020 9:57 am

Really, something SO impressive... Let's hope they'll build a new one?

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Re: Arecibo Observatory radio telescope to close

#8 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sat Dec 05, 2020 3:20 pm

Maybe it is just because I am in a gloomy mood at the moment, but the sight of the wreck of that wonderful instrument of science seems somehow synonymous with the onset of the anti-scientific and irrational spirit that is at large in the world in these troubled times. It all appears to have gone to wrack and ruin, and ignorance, sheer perverse stupidity allied to mass passivity seems to doom that artefact to return, like some ancient, weed infested Mayan temple, to nature, devoid of utility, save as a warning to coming generations about the degradation of this infernal epoch.
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Re: Arecibo Observatory radio telescope to close

#9 Post by PHXPhlyer » Sat Oct 15, 2022 1:58 pm

World-renowned Puerto Rico telescope won't be rebuilt after collapse
“We understand how much the site has meant to the community,” said Sean Jones of the National Science Foundation. “If you’re a radio astronomer, you’ve probably spent some time of your career at Arecibo.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/wor ... -rcna52280

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The National Science Foundation announced Thursday that it will not rebuild a renowned radio telescope in Puerto Rico, which was one of the world’s largest until it collapsed nearly two years ago.

Instead, the agency issued a solicitation for the creation of a $5 million education center at the site that would promote programs and partnerships related to science, technology, engineering and math. It also seeks the implementation of a research and workforce development program, with the center slated to open next year in the northern mountain town of Arecibo where the telescope was once located.

The solicitation does not include operational support for current infrastructure at the site that is still in use, including a 12-meter radio telescope or the Lidar facility, which is used to study the upper atmosphere and ionosphere to analyze cloud cover and precipitation data.

The decision was mourned by scientists around the world who used the telescope at the Arecibo Observatory for years to search for asteroids, planets and extraterrestrial life. The 1,000-foot-wide (305-meter-wide) dish also was featured in the Jodie Foster film “Contact” and the James Bond movie “GoldenEye.”

The reflector dish and the 900-ton platform hanging 450 feet above it previously allowed scientists to track asteroids headed to Earth, conduct research that led to a Nobel Prize and determine if a planet is potentially habitable.

“We understand how much the site has meant to the community,” said Sean Jones, assistant director for directorate of mathematical and physical sciences at NSF. “If you’re a radio astronomer, you’ve probably spent some time of your career at Arecibo.”

But all research abruptly ended when an auxiliary cable snapped in August 2020, tearing a 100-foot hole in the dish and damaging the dome above it. A main cable broke three months later, prompting the NSF to announce in November 2020 that it was closing the telescope because the structure was too unstable.

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