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Radio astronomer here- it is a unhappy day for science. We won’t ever see the likes of Arecibo once more and I actually have colleagues crying proper now, not simply due to the science misplaced however as a result of Arecibo was so near many lives. (Many obtained their first begin within the discipline at Arecibo via its pupil applications, I do know at the very least one couple that met there, and it was iconic in Puerto Rican id.)
FAQ, together with my publish final week that addressed loads of the questions then:
What occurred? There was a cable break in August, adopted by a most important cable break holding the big 900 ton feed horn (that James Bond ran on- or reasonably his stunt double, astronomers bragged Pierce Brosnan was too scared to do what they do each day), and it appears like your entire factor lastly collapsed onto the dish beneath. It was the dimensions of the home and the place all of the costly tools was.
Can they repair it? No. This is the equal on an optical telescope of the underside the place your eyepiece/digicam falling out and smashing a gap within the mirror. It’s gone.
Did they save any of the hundreds of thousands of {dollars} of kit? Again, no. It was far too harmful to get into the horn as soon as the principle cable snapped and engineering experiences point out they had been protecting individuals very removed from it. For good motive primarily based on this growth…
What occurs now? The NSF is beneath contract to return the telescope website to its unique pure state so I suppose the demolition will start. There shouldn’t be cash or curiosity in rebuilding this magnificent engineering marvel.
Q&A from final week
To reply some questions you might need:
It’s a 50 12 months outdated telescope- was it nonetheless doing good science? Short reply: sure. Arecibo has had a storied historical past doing loads of nice radio astronomy- whereas its SETI days are behind it (it hasn’t actually achieved SETI in years) the telescope has achieved a ton of wonderful science over the years- in actual fact, Arecibo gave us one Nobel Prize for the discovery of the primary binary pulsar (which was the primary oblique discovery of gravitational waves!). More just lately, Arecibo was the primary radio telescope on the planet to find a repeating Fast Radio Burst (FRB)– the latest class of bizarre radio signal- which was a large milestone in our quest to grasp what they’re (we now suppose they’re most likely from a souped up sort of pulsar, known as a magnetar, thanks largely to the work Arecibo has achieved). Finally, Arecibo was additionally an enormous companion in nanoGRAV– a tremendous group aiming to detect gravitational waves through measuring pulsars actually carefully- in order that’s an enormous setback there.
Can’t different radio telescopes simply decide up the slack? Yes and no. FAST in China is a tremendous dish that is even greater than Arecibo, in order that’ll be nice, however proper now continues to be fairly restricted within the form of science it could possibly do. Second, it does not actually have the potential to transmit and obtain like Arecibo does- Arecibo was principally the largest interplanetary radar on the market, and FAST has stated they may do this nevertheless it’s not at present clear the timeline on that- Arecibo would do that to replace the form and orbits of asteroids which may hit Earth sometime utilizing radar, for instance, so we simply haven’t got that functionality anymore.
Beyond that, you might in fact do some science Arecibo has been historically doing on telescopes just like the Very Large Array (VLA) or the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBI), however these are oversubscribed- there are actually solely so many hours in a day, and proper now the VLA for instance will obtain proposals for two-3x as a lot telescope time as they may give. Losing Arecibo means getting telescope time is now going to be that rather more aggressive.
Why do not we simply construct an even bigger telescope? One on the far facet of the moon sounds nice! I agree! But good Lord, Arecibo has been struggling for years as a result of the NSF could not scratch collectively a number of million {dollars} to maintain it operating, which most likely led to the literal dish falling aside. Do you actually suppose a nation that may’t discover cash to carry out primary upkeep goes to cough as much as construct a radio telescope on the far facet of the moon anytime quickly?! Radio astronomy funding has been disastrous in recent times, with our flagship observatories actually falling aside, and the very best future devices are actually being constructed overseas (FAST in China, SKA in South Africa/Australia). Chalk this up as an emblem for American funding in science as an entire, actually…
So yeah, there we now have it- it is a unhappy day for me. I really was fortunate sufficient to go to Arecibo simply over a 12 months in the past (on my honeymoon!), and I’m actually pleased now that I had the prospect to see the telescope in individual that’s impressed a lot. And I’m additionally actually unhappy proper now as a result of science apart, lots of people are actually going to lose their jobs, and I understand how necessary Arecibo was to Puerto Rico, each when it comes to training/science however as a cultural icon.
TL;DR it is a unhappy day for American science. We will certainly know rather less concerning the universe for not having the Arecibo Observatory in it.
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