Two cables broke on August 10 and November 6. Photo: AFP
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https://scmp.com/news/world/article/3110623/brink-collapse-famed-arecibo-space-telescope-close-down World
Arecibo space telescope where James Bond film GoldenEye and Jodie Foster movie Contact filmed to close down over collapse fears
- The Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico is one of the largest in the world
- Two cables supporting the 900-tonne structure are broken
The National Science Foundation will decommission the radio telescope following two cable breaks in recent months which have brought the structure to near collapse. Photo AFP
The US National Science Foundation on Thursday announced it will close down the massive space telescope at Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory, ending 57 years of astronomical discoveries after suffering two destructive mishaps in recent months.
Operations at the observatory, one of the largest in the world, were halted in August when one of its supportive cables slipped loose from its socket, falling and gashing a 30-metre hole in its 305-metre-wide reflector dish.
Another cable then broke earlier this month, tearing a new hole in the dish and damaging nearby cables as engineers scrambled to devise a plan to preserve the crippled structure.
“NSF has concluded that this recent damage to the 305-metre telescope cannot be addressed without risking the lives and safety of work crews and staff,” Sean Jones, assistant director of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate at NSF, said on Thursday.
“NSF has decided to begin the process of planning for a controlled decommissioning of the 305-meter telescope,” Jones said.
Engineers have not yet determined the cause of the initial cable’s failure, a NSF spokesperson said.
The telescope was built in the 1960s with money from the Defence Department amid a push to develop anti-ballistic missile defences. Over decades, it endured hurricanes, endless humidity and a recent string of strong earthquakes.
The observatory’s vast reflector dish and a 900-tonne structure hanging 137 metres above it, nestled in the humid forests of Arecibo, Puerto Rico, has featured in the Jodie Foster film Contact and the James Bond movie GoldenEye.
It had been used by scientists and astronomers around the world for decades to analyse distant planets, find potentially hazardous asteroids and hunt for signatures of extraterrestrial life.
The telescope was instrumental in detecting the near-Earth asteroid Bennu in 1999, which laid the groundwork for Nasa to send a robotic probe there to collect and eventually return its first asteroid dirt sample some two decades later.
An engineering firm hired by the University of Central Florida, which manages the observatory for NSF under a five-year US$20 million agreement, concluded in a report to the university last week “that if an additional main cable fails, a catastrophic collapse of the entire structure will soon follow.”
Citing safety concerns, the firm ruled out efforts to repair the observatory and recommended a controlled demolition.
A large gash to the radio telescope's reflector dish. Photo: AP
The announcement saddened many beyond the scientific world as well, with the hashtag #WhatAreciboMeansToMe popping up on Twitter along with pictures of people working, visiting and even getting married or celebrating a birthday at the telescope.
Alex Wolszczan, a Polish-born astronomer and professor at Pennsylvania State University who helped discover the first extrasolar and pulsar planets, said that while the news wasn’t surprising, it was disappointing. He worked at the telescope in the 1980s and early 1990s.
“I was hoping against hope that they would come up with some kind of solution to keep it open,” he said. “For a person who has had a lot of his scientific life associated with that telescope, this is a rather interesting and sadly emotional moment.”
Additional reporting by Associated Press