US authorities closed the dish on November 17? |
Realeased on 17 November 1995 (USA)? |
The telescope has played a key role in astronomical discoveries for more than half a century and entered popular culture with appearances in Hollywood films like GoldenEye and Contact.
The US National Science Foundation (NSF) had earlier announced that the Arecibo Observatory would be closed.
An auxiliary cable snapped in August, causing a wide gash on the 305-metre-wide dish and damaging the receiver platform that hung above it.
Then a main cable broke in early November.
So, this telescope was born in the Year of the Rat and finally died in the Year of the Rat, doing five cycles of the Chinese zodiac?
The observatory's main instrument was the Arecibo Telescope, a 305 m (1,000 ft) spherical reflector dish built into a natural sinkhole, with a cable-mount steerable receiver and several radar transmitters for emitting signals mounted 150 m (492 ft) above the dish.
Completed in 1963, it was the world's largest single-aperture telescope for 53 years, surpassed in July 2016 by the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in China.
The Arecibo Telescope suffered catastrophic structural failure on December 1, 2020, after two cable breaks in the previous months.
Marian apparitions reported in 1917? |
That satellite dish seems to be built on more of a rabbit hole than a sinkhole it seems?
I notice that "the father of Arecibo Observatory" shares January 8th as a birthday with Elvis and David Bowie;-)
This was sad. Arecibo telescope gone.
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