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A huge radio telescope at Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory, one of the largest in the world, collapsed on Tuesday after suffering severe damage since August, authorities said, after 57 years of astronomical discoveries.
The telescope’s decaying 900-ton instrument platform, suspended by cables 450 feet (137 meters) above a 1,000-foot-wide (305-meter) bowl-shaped reflector dish, fell Tuesday morning, the National Foundation said. Science Department No injuries were reported, he added.
The telescope, which received radio waves from space, had been used by scientists around the world to search for possible signatures of extraterrestrial life, study distant planets, and find potentially dangerous asteroids. It also gained fame after pivotal scenes from the 1995 James Bond film “GoldenEye” starring Pierce Brosnan were shot there.
Two cables supporting the reflector plate had snapped since August, causing damage and forcing officials to shut down the observatory as engineering firms hired by the University of Central Florida, which runs the observatory, studied ways to repair the damage.
In November, engineering reviews led NSF and the university to conclude that efforts to repair the structure would be too dangerous and that it would have to be demolished.
The NSF said initial findings indicated that the upper section of the telescope’s three support towers broke and that when the instrument platform fell, the telescope support cables also collapsed.
The observatory also includes other scientific assets, such as a 40-foot (12-meter) telescope used for radio astronomy research and a facility used to study Earth’s upper atmosphere and ionosphere. The observatory’s learning center, located next to the telescope, suffered significant damage from falling cables, the NSF said.
“We are saddened by this situation, but grateful that no one was injured,” NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan said in a statement. “Our focus now is on assessing the damage, finding ways to restore operations in other parts of the observatory, and working to continue supporting the scientific community and the people of Puerto Rico.”
NSF said it will authorize the university to continue to pay Arecibo staff and to develop a plan to continue research at the observatory. The agency said it has not determined the cause of the initial cable failure in August.
© Thomson Reuters 2020
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