The Arecibo Radio-Telescope, located in Puerto Rico, collapsed Tuesday. The telescope’s 900-ton receiver platform fell onto the reflector dish more than 400 feet below.
An auxiliary suspension cable broke in August, causing a 100-foot gash on the 1,000-foot-wide dish and damaged the receiver platform that hung above it. Then a main cable broke in early November, leading to the decommissioning of the radio-telescope.
First use of the scope, built into a natural depression, was in 1963. It featured a 1000 foot diameter reflector and a cable mounted, steerable receiver 492 feet above the dish.
The Arecibo Telescope was primarily used for research in radio astronomy, atmospheric science, and radar astronomy, as well as for programs that search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). The observatory, funded primarily by the National Science Foundation (NSF) with partial support from NASA, was managed by Cornell University from its completion in 1963 until 2011, after which it was transferred to a partnership led by SRI International. Since 2018, a consortium led by the University of Central Florida has controlled operation of the facility.