Hurricane Maria did major damage to the Puerto Rican telescope in 2017 that lead to the collapse of this world class iconic radio telescope 3 years later after failing to get funded and maintained. It was the largest for the USA by a long shot at 305 meters. China’s FAST became the largest at 500 meters in 2016. This is Trump’s (2017-2020) legacy for Puerto Rico.

  • Billiam@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    19
    ·
    18 hours ago

    It wasn’t just a radio telescope, but it was also a radar telescope. That’s what made it so important- it could actively measure the speed of objects in the solar system.

    IIRC, FAST wasn’t designed to do that, but was supposed to be retrofitted to add that capability after Arecibo’s collapse.

  • aeronmelon@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    54
    ·
    1 day ago

    It was featured in Goldeneye and Contact back in the 1990s.

    I really liked that dish as a structure, such a shame it was allowed to just waste away.

  • acosmichippo@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    22
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 day ago

    “in over a century of successful use prior to the Arecibo Telescope’s collapse, all the forensic investigations agreed that such a spelter socket failure had never been reported.” The report went on: “The only hypothesis the committee could develop that provides a plausible but unprovable answer … is that the socket zinc creep was unexpectedly accelerated in the Arecibo Telescope’s uniquely powerful electromagnetic radiation environment.” In other words, the sockets’ role in suspending such a powerful radio transmitter somehow contributed to the 2020 catastrophe.

    interesting.

    • Crackhappy@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      23 hours ago

      I retract what I said. I’m an idiot. That is so clearly a spoof I should have known.

  • Crackhappy@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    arrow-down
    15
    ·
    edit-2
    23 hours ago

    It’s disappointing that you didn’t realize your grammatical error, considering its importance to science.