![]() ![]() RIVERA-VALENTIN: When you’re working at a telescope as a scientist, as an engineer, as anyone at a telescope, that facility is almost, you know, a second home for you. So, you know, what went through your mind when you heard about this damage, Ed? And then it came down and slammed onto the dish, causing a hole to form and a lot of those panels to be broken. In your mind, imagine it kind of like a rubber band because it comes off with force, and it hit the side of the Gregorian dome. RIVERA-VALENTIN: So in early August, one of the wires that helped to suspend the platform in the air came off. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (Speaking Spanish). That’s where they were when they heard the news that Arecibo, the telescope, had suffered major damage. SOFIA: These days, Ed’s a planetary scientist with the University Space Research Association at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. That’s how ingrained the telescope is in our culture. RIVERA-VALENTIN: When you’re walking around San Juan and looking at the art, artists are making paintings of the telescope. It was constructed in the 1960s, and now, Ed says that the telescope has permeated much of Puerto Rican culture. Suspended above is a 900-ton platform that holds a bunch of scientific instruments. The dish is a thousand feet in diameter and covers just about 20 acres. RIVERA-VALENTIN: I’ve heard people say that when they go up to it, it’s almost a religious experience. They even ended up working at the telescope itself for several years. I have to get to do this really cool science. And getting to know that that type of science and that an instrument so valuable for the entire world was literally in my backyard was something that just told me, OK, this is what I have to do. I remember looking over and just being completely and utterly stunned. My parents took me up there when I think I was 3. ![]() Ed grew up on the northern coast of Puerto Rico near the Arecibo telescope.ĮD RIVERA-VALENTIN: The reason I am in astronomy and planetary science is because of that telescope. The first word Ed Rivera-Valentin ever spoke was luna – moon in Spanish. They “suspect that Puerto Rico’s lack of representation may stymie or slow any hopes to build something new at the site after the current telescope is demolished,” according to an article at . “Politically, they don’t have that much clout, and so it makes it difficult.A report from NPR. What will happen next for Arecibo? The people who survived the telescope collapse in West Virginia wonder about that. The new telescope built to replace the loss was named after Byrd, who fought hard for it in Congress.īut Arecibo is not only a terrible loss to the scientific community, it is also an important part of the local economy. When a telescope at Green Bank in West Virginia collapsed in 1998, Senators Robert Byrd and Jay Rockefeller came to the rescue. Like so many needed repairs, the tasks had not yet been completed. Would such an important and beloved facility have faced budget cuts if it had been located in a state, with Senators and voting Members of the House to speak up for it?Īrecibo received emergency grants from Congress after Hurricane Maria damaged the structures in 2017. They had been slashing funds since 2006 and proposed closing the observatory as early as 2016. The National Science Foundation proposed reduced funding for Arecibo in their 2019 budget. Many people hoped against all odds to rescue the telescope, but it was not possible. The #whatarecibomeanstome campaign collected innumerable messages from the global scientific community telling how Arecibo led so many to their lives’ work. It has also provided inspiration for generations of scientists and STEM professionals in Puerto Rico. InspirationĪrecibo has been called “irreplaceable” by scientists. Researchers won the Nobel prize in physics for work conducted with the observatory.Īrecibo also sent out a famous radio message to the stars in hopes of reaching sentient beings outside of the earth. Upgrades over the years brought the telescope to a level of power that would allow it to detect a steel golf ball on the moon.Īrecibo has been used to study pulsars, black holes, and the possibility of habitable planets. He oversaw construction of the observatory, including the 1,000 foot telescope dish, from 1960 to 1963. Gordon of Cornell University recognized the karst sinkhole in Arecibo as a perfect natural location for a giant telescope. The NSF had announced that they were hoping to keep other elements of the observatory open. They had determined that it would be too dangerous to repair the telescope and were planning to close it. Two cables had broken, and the National Science Foundation had predicted that the dish could collapse on its own. The observatory at Arecibo, until a couple of years ago the home of the largest radio telescope in the world, has lost the telescope in a collapse. ![]()
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