- The radio telescope of the Ci Resibo Observatory crashed on Tuesday morning, when its 900-ton suspended platform crashed into a massive dish below.
- Arecibo was one of the best radio astronomical instruments on Earth for 57 years. His death is a push into asteroid-tracking efforts and the search for alien life.
- Photos from the iconic telescope show what it looked like before and after the crash.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
The enormous radio telescope of the Ci Resibo Observatory collapsed on Tuesday morning. Its 900-ton platform crashed into the following 1,000-foot-side disc, falling to the top of the three support towers below.
The death was not a complete surprise. After the telescope suffered two cable breaks in August and November, the National Science Foundation, which owns the telescope, decided it was not structurally appropriate for workers to be able to repair it safely. The foundation dismantled the Puerto Rico telescope in late November, and engineers were working to find out how it could be deconstructed. But the platform crashed before that work could progress.
Arecibo pulls a juxtaposed screen from a video taken by the Observatory, showing the telescope’s platform falling.
Courtesy Arecibo Observatory, U.S. National Science Foundation Facility
“Friends, you are very sorry to learn that the Are Resibo Observatory platform has just collapsed,” said Deborah Martore Rail, a meteorologist in Puerto Rico. Tweeted in Spanish on Tuesday morning.
Prior to the crash, the telescope’s giant platform hung 450 feet in the air above its giant bowl-shaped disc. The disk reflects radio waves from space to devices on a suspended platform.
Arecibo Observatory in 2012. The Gregorian dome hangs over a 1000-foot reflector dish.
Universal Images Group by Getty Images
But on Tuesday morning, the cables connecting the platform to one of the towers broke, sending it soaking down.
Jonathan Friedman, who has worked on the scientific staff of the Ci Resibo Observatory since 1993, told NoticeCentro in the local news sector that the fall was like an earthquake, a train or an avalanche.
The 900-ton platform crashed into the main dish of the Arecibo Telescope on December 1, 2020.
Ricardo Arduengo / AFP / Getty Images
Life was about hunting asteroids and acting in movies
Since its completion in 1963, the Arecibo Telescope has played a role in some of humanity’s most compelling findings about space.
He discovered the first known planet outside our solar system, sent powerful transmissions to stop potential aliens, and tracked potentially dangerous asteroids to see if they could collide with Earth.
It also helped scientists confirm Einstein’s theory of general relativity by discovering the first binary pulsar: a more magnetic, compact star that orbits another star.
Arecibo also enabled researchers to hunt radio waves with potential alien technology from G. The only other radio telescope that is equal to the former power of Are Resibo is China’s five-hundred-meter aperture circular radio telescope (Fast).
Due to the scale and setting of the telescope, it was also on screen: in 1995, James Foster starred in the 1995 James Bond film “Golden” and the 1997 film “Contact”.
Jodie Foster in the movie “Contact”, based on a novel by Carl Sagan.
Franઇois Duhmel / Sigma by Getty Images
Scientists around the world are mourning the loss of the Arecibo Telescope, but it was of special significance to many in Puerto Rico, where it attracts 90,000 visitors a year. It also serves as a training ground for undergraduate students in other disciplines related to astronomy, physics and space.
“I was completely devastated when I heard the news,” he told Business Insider in November after cutting off the telescope.
Mendez has been around the observatory since he was 10 and has been working with him professionally for a decade.
“It’s hard to take. It’s like losing someone important in your life,” he said. “Yes, 2020 – it’s not good.”
Morgan McFaul-Johnson, Elin Woodward and Dave Mosher contributed to the report.
