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View Full Version : ‘Sad day for radio astronomy’: Arecibo Observatory to shut down

Gerald
11-20-20, 08:22 PM
ANU Cosmologist Dr Brad Tucker says the 305-metre Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico will be shut down after almost six decades.

“It’s had a bad run, it got hit bad by the hurricane that hit in Puerto Rico in 2017, there was obviously the earthquake in 2019 and overtime the fatigue has meant that a couple of key components that keep this dish up have broken.”

https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6211097874001

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_Observatory


'Six decades impressive I knew it had been in use for a long time but not that the tracks went back to the late 1950s.
Buddahaid
11-20-20, 08:55 PM
Even James Bond used it....
Jimbuna
11-21-20, 06:21 AM
Even James Bond used it....

GoldenEye
Skybird
11-21-20, 06:36 AM
Iconic place and name, like "Space Shuttle".
Gerald
12-03-20, 03:32 PM
Puerto Rico: The moment the Arecibo Observatory telescope collapsed

Video footage shows the moment that one of the world's largest telescopes collapsed at Puerto Rico's Arecibo Observatory in on Tuesday.
No injuries were reported from the collapse.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-55181448
Platapus
12-03-20, 06:03 PM
With current technology and by using state of the art distributed aperture designs, can the same data be obtained without the expense of a monolithic aperture?


Arecibo was cool. Very cool. But it was old cool. While it had been upgraded several times, there is only so much new technology that can be applied to that type of fixed aperture.