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The famend Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico will probably be dismantled after 57 years of service due to the rupture of cables which have led to the risk of collapse, the US National Science Foundation introduced Thursday.
Two cables supporting the 900-ton devices for the telescope above a radio dish 1,000 toes (305 metres) in diameter broke on August 10 and November 6.
Engineers are involved different cables might additionally break at any time, making any try at restore excessively harmful.
The telescope is one of the largest in the world and has been a instrument for a lot of astronomical discoveries.
The basis “prioritises the safety of workers, Arecibo Observatory’s staff and visitors, which makes this decision necessary, although unfortunate,” stated NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan.
“For nearly six decades, the Arecibo Observatory has served as a beacon for breakthrough science and what a partnership with a community can look like.”
Using the hashtag “WhatAreciboMeansToMe”, messages of unhappiness at the information unfold on Twitter from each skilled and beginner astronomers who’ve used the telescope for his or her work in observing the cosmos for many years.
“More than a telescope, Arecibo is the reason I am even in astronomy,” native astronomer Kevin Ortiz Ceballos wrote on Twitter.
Karen Masters, astrophysics professor at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, posted a photograph of herself and her child daughter close to the radio dish in 2008 and stated she was “heartbroken and disappointed.”
An motion scene from the James Bond movie GoldenEye takes place above the telescope, and in the movie Contact an astronomer performed by Jodie Foster makes use of the observatory in her quest for alien alerts.
The engineering firm that examined the construction concluded that the remaining cables had been presumably weaker than anticipated and really useful managed demolition, which the basis accepted.
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(This story has not been edited by Newslivenation employees and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)