Arecibo Shut down for damage repair

[notFritzArgelander]

https://phys.org/news/2020-08-broken-ca ... scope.html

[KingNothing13]

Apparently a cable came loose and damaged the dish, so it has to be shut down for repairs.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/12/us/areci ... index.html

[Lady Fraktor]

This is not good, hopefully repairs can be made quickly and there are not any major contributing factors that will keep it shut down for a while.

[Lady Fraktor]

Definitely not a good thing!
There is another story posted by nFA here as well:
viewtopic.php?f=74&t=12617&p=106724#p106724

[Juno16]

Wow! The damage looks pretty significant.

Hopefully the cause of failure is not part of the original construction design and the telescope can get up and running soon.

[KathyNS]

Two similar threads merged.

[smp]

Here's an article from Ars Technica:
"The iconic Arecibo Telescope goes quiet after major damage"

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/08 ... or-damage/

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[helicon]

Thanks for the article Stephen. I do hope it gets up and running again soon.

[Makuser]

Thanks all for your posts and informative links. Arecibo is part of a network of great radio telescopes around the globe. And losing any one of them is a major setback for their research efforts.

[KathyNS]

I guess the chip is a little too big to cover with black paint.

[smp]

I saw this article on ScienceMag.org this morning:
"Second cable breaks at Puerto Rico’s Arecibo telescope"

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/11 ... -telescope

"The already battered Arecibo Observatory was hit with another blow on 7 November when one of its 12 main support cables snapped and tore through the radio telescope’s main dish. The incident comes just 3 months after the failure of another cable. Researchers are concerned that increasing stresses on remaining cables could lead to cascading failures and the collapse of the antenna platform that is suspended over the dish.

“It’s not a pretty picture,” says Joanna Rankin, a radio astronomer at the University of Vermont. “This is damn serious.” It is “without a doubt” the worst accident to befall the observatory in its long history, says former Director Donald Campbell, now at Cornell University."

This seems to be very bad news!

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[helicon]

Yes, a big problem Stephen - need to repair what has broken before anything worse happens. I suppose budgetary constraints play into this.

[KingNothing13]

My wife mentioned this to me the other night, and I promptly forgot to look for details, thanks for posting.

Not good, not good at all

[smp]

Here's another article from ScienceMag.org:
"Famed Arecibo telescope, on the brink of collapse, will be dismantled"

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/11 ... dismantled

This is very sad news, indeed.

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[KingNothing13]

It's a real bummer.

[smp]

Apparently it has now collapsed.

See here: https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/7428 ... ry10694052

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[helicon]

I'm assuming there are various facilities around the globe that can perform in its stead. Sure is sad to see it go though. It was even featured in the movies at least once (Contact, for example) and I think Carl Sagan talked about it in Cosmos.

[KingNothing13]

Just read that it collapsed this morning. Not a surprise at this point, but sad none-the-less.

[smp]

From Space.com:
"The Arecibo radio telescope's massive hanging platform has collapsed"

https://www.space.com/arecibo-radio-telescope-collapses

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[smp]

From Ars Technica:
"Arecibo radio telescope’s massive instrument platform has collapsed"

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/12 ... collapsed/

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