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The end of an era came unexpectedly this week when Puerto Rico’s iconic Arecibo Telescope collapsed on December 1 exactly one month after its 57th birthday. And it just so happens that everything was captured in spectacular drone footage that you can see here right now.
Drone footage of the Arecibo collapse. I can’t believe the moment they had a drone in the air when this happened. What strange luck. Source: @NSF pic.twitter.com/Kpfw47moAC
– TJ Cooney 🚀🎄 (@TJ_Cooney) December 3, 2020
The telescope, which came into operation in 1963 and until 2016 was the world’s largest spherical reflector dish, was for decades a crucial tool in the advancement of astronomy. While it was primarily used for research in atmospheric science and radio and radar astronomy, it was perhaps best known as a key NASA tool for monitoring near-Earth asteroids and as part of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
Among the discoveries made with the telescope: Mercury’s 59-day rotation period; the first solid evidence supporting the existence of neutron stars; the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of the first binary pulsar; the first observation of a comet by radar; and the first identified extrasolar planets.
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He was also well known for appearances in various pop culture milestones, the most famous being the James Bond film “GoldenEye” (1995), where he was used at the climax of the film as the villain’s secret base. He also appeared in the films “Species” (1996) and “Contact” (1997), and in an episode of “The X Files,” as well as in multiple video games and novels.
Sadly, during the 2010s it was hit by a series of tropical storms and severe hurricanes caused by climate change, culminating in terrible damage inflicted by Hurricane Maria in 2017. Unfortunately, the 2016 elections led to a government. that he was not willing to finance repairs. Although new sources of funding were improvised in late 2018, it was determined in late November 2020 that there was no way to safely repair the telescope and the National Science Foundation announced that it would be dismantled.
The decommissioning was supposed to continue after NSF determined the safest possible method, but physics had other plans. Then, on December 4, everything fell apart almost without warning.
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But, even though the end of 60 years of scientific progress is sad, we are glad that a historically significant event like that has at least been captured on video. You can see more of the collapse here and see how the telescope was used in “GoldenEye” below.
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