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On November 19, it was announced that one of the most famous telescopes in astronomy, the radio telescope, which is 305 meters wide, would be shut down completely. Arecibo, Puerto Rico.
According to the news site Nature Science, engineers announced that they could not find a safe way to repair it after the telescope’s two Kaplan mounts suddenly and catastrophically broke, one last August and the other in early November.
Painful technical problems
The day before this closure, the French newspaper Le Monde had said that on November 6, one of the main tension cables that supported a 900-ton platform broke and fell from a height of 150 meters on the giant antenna designed to capture the radio waves from space, which reached Its diameter is about 300 meters.
He added that this accident occurs as a result of another accident that occurred on August 10, which caused another cable to fall on the antenna, leaving a hole with a diameter of 30 meters.
The newspaper said that there are only a few cables that now support the platform, and as each one of them “now has more weight than before, this increases the risk of another accident that will probably lead to the collapse of the entire structure this time.” , according to the university. Central Florida (University of Central Florida), which oversees the observatory.
According to university officials, signs of weakness have already been seen in the remaining cables.
According to the daily Le Monde, other cables were expected to drop in the coming weeks.
Engineers were unable to find a safe way to repair the observatory after the two Kaplan supports of the telescope frame were suddenly and disastrously destroyed (French)The observatory estimates that the losses will exceed 12 million dollars (10.1 million euros), and to repair the damage it was necessary to deduct part of the funds allocated to the National Science Foundation.
According to Rob Margita, spokesman for the foundation that owns the observatory, the decision to fund the maintenance would have required discussions with the US Congress and all interested parties.
During the 57 years that have elapsed since its inception, this radio observatory has witnessed a series of storms and earthquakes that have caused extensive damage, and the process of repairing the damage caused by Hurricane María in 2017 was underway when cut the first wire.
Scientific and economic wealth
The accidents that affected the observatory affected the work of some 250 scientists who use it, and the observatory is considered essential for the study of pulsars, since these stars, which emit very regular radio signals, can be used to detect the passage of gravitational waves.
Alex Voleszan, an astronomer and professor at Pennsylvania State University, revealed to the Associated Press that the observatory “has existed for more than 50 years, but it is still a very important tool, and losing it would be a serious blow to what it constitutes, in its opinion, a very important investigation. “
According to National Geographic, the first purpose of the Arecibo Observatory – which was established in 1963 during the Cold War – was to monitor Soviet satellites or even missiles, thanks to the disturbances that these devices cause in the atmosphere.
On the scientific side, the observatory has done amazing work, for a year after its opening it managed to determine the rotation period of the planet Mercury, and after a decade it gave scientists the first indirect observation of gravitational waves, thanks to the which researcher Joseph Taylor won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1993.
It is credited with the first discoveries of extrasolar planets in the early 1990s, and it was also used to observe asteroids orbiting close to Earth.
The observatory was essential to study pulsars that emit very regular radio signals to detect the passage of gravitational waves (French).The Arecibo Observatory was the first instrument of its kind in the world, before it was surpassed by the Chinese “Sky Eye” in southwest China (with a 500-meter antenna), which was established in 2016.
The observatory is known to the general public especially thanks to its appearance in many films, including the film “Golden Eye” from the James Bond series, and it was considered an important tourist site, receiving 90 thousand visitors a year.
Source : British Press + French Press
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