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The following is an open letter, dated December 4, 2020, about the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. The letter has been lightly edited for style. The following video is courtesy of Carlos Pérez.
Position Statement on Arecibo Scientific Asset Recovery
The terrible events related to the collapse of the Arecibo platform have deeply impacted the national and international scientific community. In particular, there has been widespread and understandably intense shock and grief over the catastrophic loss of all equipment located on the Arecibo platform for radio astronomy, planetary radar, and atmospheric sciences.
However, preliminary evaluations have indicated that the observatory’s significant resources located on the ground near the Arecibo reflector are not completely destroyed. These items have great potential for future scientific observations and should not be sent immediately for material recycling without an assessment of recovery potential and a subsequent plan for careful extraction and preservation of material that is still productive. For example, some of the antennas of the HF heating installation at the bottom of the dish are still standing. The transmission lines of the HF facility are intact under the damaged reflector panels. Aside from the impact area of the main platform, the reflector floor screen is intact. The use of the reflector at lower frequencies may be possible with reduced effective gain with relatively modest repairs using existing panel material already on site. Most of the supporting cables and reflective panels are still in place. HF and UHF transmitters, modulators, control hardware, data servers, generators and other ground equipment remain intact in buildings 1 and 2, the optics facility, the 12m baseline interferometry telescope area of length, the main warehouse and other areas away from the main reflector.
For these reasons, we strongly recommend that during the post-collapse site cleanup, a deliberate and carefully considered course of action should be taken that protects the remaining Arecibo equipment and assets that were not seriously or irreparably damaged by the platform collapse. Preserving these assets is a key step in allowing parts of Arecibo’s radioscience portfolio to be restored in innovative ways through future community proposals and other efforts. This approach will really get the most out of the current situation, with direct benefit to human science explorations of our planet’s atmosphere and the universe.
The 85 signatories (as of December 14) come from all over the world and are mostly Arecibo users.
Eliana nossa
Jorge L. Herrera
Dale C. Ferguson
Ashton S. Reimer
Richard L. Ferranti
Asti bhatt
Gerald lehmacher
Cesar Valladares
Sean Marshall
Khushboo Jain
Erhan kudeki
Alireza Mahmoudian
Meers Oppenheim
Lewis duncan
Min-chang lee
Luisa Fernanda Zambrano-Marin
Jeff Dumps
Pablo Reyes
Bill Amatucci
Anne Virkki
Nipuni Palliyaguru
James P. Conroy
Danny Scipion
Trond S. Trondsen
Robert Minchin
Michael Rietveld
Ashanthi maxworth
Marcus leech
Carlos perez
Andreas Kvammen
Cissi Ying-tsen Lin
Mariangelly Díaz-Rodríguez
Evgeny sergeev
Alessondra springmann
Gonzalo Cucho-Padin
Tapasi Ghosh
Christopher salter
Binghui Wang
Rob pfaff
Michael W. Busch
Glenn hussey
Rob miceli
Kevin Ortiz Ceballos
Barbara Rojas-Ayala
Tim dolch
Philip J. Erickson
Lindsay goodwin
Thomas leyser
Angeline G. Burrell
Tima Sergienko
Teresa Rexer
Lisa baddeley
Nicole Lloyd-Ronning
Brian Gilchrist
Aram vartanyan
Katie herlingshaw
Lindis bjoland
Andy Lopez-Oquendo
Juha Vierinen
Stan briczinski
David hysell
Erkka heino
Abniel machin
Wilbert Ruperto Hernandez
Denton Ebel
Anthea coster
Christiano Garnett Marques Brum
Patrick Taylor
Susan nossal
Scott rohan
Abel mendez
Carl Friedberg
Laird Whitehill
Poorya Hosseini
Mary putman
Natasha Cooke-Nieves
Amanda Dawn Christie
Alexander Chernyshov
Jim Breakall
Marcel agüeros
Julia Deneva
Frank Djuth
Jonathan Krall
Joel weisberg
Andrei Demekhov
