The American Science Foundation has decided not to restore its veteran radio telescope, Arecibo Observatory, which collapsed at the end of 2020. To the dismay of the scientific community, the board is providing $1 million annually for the next five years for science education at the facility — but optimists were glad the observatory wouldn’t close fully.
Puerto Rico’s legendary radio telescope began operating in 1963, and the 305-meter continuous dish antenna was the largest in the world for decades. Problems with the aging structure began in 2017, when Hurricane Maria devastated it. In August 2020, one of the steel cables supporting a 900-ton platform suspended above the observatory fell. In November, the structure became life-threatening when another cable broke during repair attempts. As the last chapter in the history of the observatory, on December 1, the platform completely broke off and the main antenna of the observatory collapsed.
The scientific establishment justified the decision by saying that under the current conditions, rebuilding the radio telescope requires a lot of preparation and huge investments. Currently, only a 12-meter radio telescope and a LiDAR upper-atmosphere inspection system are operating at the facility.
The observatory’s memory remains alive in the data it collected, which will be referenced in astronomy articles for decades to come.
